setting sun
by putarrilla
Summary: Falling in love is inevitable. Staying there is harder. Staying there is daunting. She doesn't know if she has what it takes to face it. But God, does she want to. In which someone joins the team and Tasha has feelings she doesn't know how to deal with. * Part one of "walk through fire (we'll be fine)".
1. crushed under the weight

**quick note to thank my amazing betas Dany and Haikha for helping me out and making sure this fic is as clear of mistakes as the three of us could make it.**

* * *

Reade is found unconscious on a Thursday afternoon. He's rushed to the hospital and Tasha is mad and scared in equal measures.

Patterson tells her, as they wait, that she'd had her suspicions about the man's condition for a while now.

Tasha wants to yell at the blonde. She doesn't. She nods. Sits and rests her head in her hands instead.

The doctor talks to them in a whispered tone. Regretful, even. Like he's seen things like this way too much. Reade is going to be fine, but they do need to find him a rehab.

That is when they call Weller in.

Because their boss had only ordered Tasha to check on her partner, since he was taking sick days too often and Kurt wasn't stupid.

Tasha had not told him about finding Edgar collapsed on his couch, left over cocaine spread over his middle table. She'd called the ambulance, and then Patterson. Reade was not the only one on leave that day.

When Kurt arrives, so does Nas.

The two have been an even more united front, lately.

Decisions are made and she doesn't say much. She hadn't known. She'd noticed Reade was different, noticed he was off, but she didn't think he would be that stupid. Would risk everything up so readily. She thought he had learned from seeing her falling on her face over her mistakes.

Talking to her team is fine. Again, she listens more than anything. Talking to Reade, however, is a different story. Talking to her screwed up partner is harder.

"I don't know what to do anymore."

"You've already done the mess." He doesn't look at her, has his arms crossed and who the hell is the man she's staring at? Where the fuck has her best friend gone to?

"So leaving you unconscious and alone would have been a better call?

"Staying the hell out of my business would be the _right call_ , yes."

"Look, you're in deep, Reade. And until you deal with that shit you have locked down, you're not gonna get out."

"You're one to talk."

"I _got_ out. I stopped gambling, I'm staying in line. _I got out_." She's getting angrier by the second, too, and he still refuses to look at her.

"Yeah, after you betrayed your entire team."

"And you almost had a cocaine overdose. My _job?_ It is everything to me. It used to be to you as well. So you better work the program if you want a chance to keep it."

"What program?"

"That's Weller's part. I'm done here."

She stands, walks out and slams the door because that is not the guy she knows. That is not the guy who calls her loser with a smirk on his face and who drops groceries off at her grandma's house when she is caught up with something and is not able to.

Patterson and Nas have matching pity looks and Tasha readjusts her pathway towards the hospital's exit. The blonde tries to catch up to her, make her stop, come back, wait for Weller before calling it a night, but a sharp _leave me alone_ thrown over her shoulder is enough for the steps following hers to fade away.

If she cries alone in her apartment, is not like anyone notices.

The only one who would is hidden behind his past and his fucked up memories and a whole lot of coke.

°°•°°

Claire was ten when she decided she wanted to be a cop.

It came as a surprise to them all.

Her mom was a soldier and Claire never said it, but it was clear to the whole family that she would never be able to follow that road. She didn't like moving, and she _hated_ the war.

She made her career-decision when she found a baby in a box on her way back from school.

The second she stepped into the house and Nana saw her _and_ the infant, things got messy and she failed to understand what was _really_ going on.

She made her career-decision when an officer caught her eye, maybe a week into the whole ordeal, and sat down by her side. He explained the case to her and she felt a bit more mature, a bit stronger for being finally able to grasp what happened to the little girl she'd found.

The baby's mother died when it was born and the dad left her in the box because he didn't know what to do.

Claire sat through the trial beside her family. Took the stand when she was called in and she focussed on the infant she'd found and carried over to her grandparents home.

Like the girl's dad, she didn't know what to do with that tiny human as well.

She was sure, however, that she couldn't just let a crying baby out in the sun either.

An officer, the same one who made her feel bigger and mature, clapped her on the shoulder when everything was over.

"You'd make a great detective one day."

"How do you know?"

"We have an eye for our own kind."

She smiled.

Then, of course, she grew up, her family moved to New York and her life seemed to pick up its pace. She worked stupid hours, got relatively good friends and made detective by twenty-eight. Then she proceeded to get knocked up and struggled with loose ends for a few years before her captain suggested the Bureau.

The change had benefits. Benefits she desperately wanted. Larger payroll, bigger cases. It all made sense and one night, her son smiled at her with chocolate all over his mouth and she knew she needed to do it. She started filling out the application after he was asleep.

Kurt Weller called her two months later and now she's trying not to chew on her bottom lip as she waits for the elevator to stop.

There had been files delivered to her apartment the same day she'd accepted the offer. The majority of the dossiers were meant to fill her in on the big case the team was working on, but one sheet presented the woman who was going to be her partner and why Claire was needed, anyway.

A ding sounds and the metal doors slide open. She never expected calm going into her old station, in this floor, however, there is nothing but it.

People type fast and silently, talk in whispers and stifle yawns.

Claire spots her desk right away.

Perhaps because it is the only one available, or perhaps because the frowning woman sitting opposite to it looks at the surface as if it would spontaneously burst into flames.

"Excuse me, are you Natasha Zapata?" She settles the box with her stuff on the table, puts on an appropriate smile and tries her hardest to keep her hands from shaking.

"God, only my grandma calls me that. I'm Tasha." Their eyes meet. Claire's hands begin to still.

"Oh, sorry. I'm Claire Pierce." She extends a hand. The woman takes it, shakes it and drops it.

"Has Weller filled you in?"

"I've read through some files, yes. How are you on the bookshop case?"

She remembers something about a frontier bookshop being used as a drug smuggler.

"Got a few people talking, but nothing solid enough for an arrest."

"How many suspects have you got?"

"Well, _Jane_ thinks there are three possible ones, but Nas and I agree A.J. is the guy."

"Jane's the tattooed one, right?"

"Yeah." Tasha takes a sip of her coffee, closes her eyes for a bit before meeting Claire's gaze again. "Have you met anyone yet?"

"Nope. Only knew who you were because of the picture attached to the files."

"I swear to God, if Kurt put the 2011 one I'm going to kill him."

Claire smirks.

And she notices her hands are relaxed.

She thought it would be hard. Knew that no one could be partnered up with someone else for as long as Zapata and Reade had been without some sort of bond appearing.

So she thought Tasha would be hard. Thought that the woman would put her through a hard time and when that Edgar guy came back, Claire would leave with a whole lot of indifference from the person she had had the back of.  
"C'mon, then. I think Patterson is in and Jane is probably down by Roman's cell."

Tasha stands up, gets her cup from the desk and starts walking.

Claire doesn't get a chance to sit down, but she's glad for one thing already, regardless. The woman's height. They are pretty much shoulder to shoulder.

No overshadowing, no large steps she has to constantly catch up to.

There's that excitement deep in her belly as she meets her new team. The one that had been missing before Tasha had made a death threat. There's excitement for new people to learn to read, new halls to map out in her mind, new camera spots to memorize.

There's the excitement and also the unease, because _that_ may diminish, but not truly disappear.

She loves new experiences and since she found that baby in that box all those years back, she's known that she wanted to protect her country. She loves new experiences and she loves her line of work.

She's dead scared too. Of having to contain her sense of humor and the bubble of energy she wakes up with every day.

Claire is upbeat, blames her grandad for that side of her and she's learned, pretty early on, that the higher up she got in her career, the more she had to push that characteristic away.

She's dead scared that with a case this size, she'll have to permanently extinguish it.

°°•°°

"I'd really rather work alone."

"She's a good cop, Tasha. And two days are not enough to call it quits."

"Yeah, sure. I just don't think she's needed. You could've used the funding to get Patterson some new equipment, I'm sure that would be more helpful."

"We're a great team. Your gut is on point, Patterson is crazy smart. Jane brought the case to us and has top military training. Nas has access to a whole new level of information. But Pierce has had the highest scores in field tactics across the _State_ for the past eight years. After the close calls we've had lately, we really could use her talent."

She sighs, crosses her arms and shrugs. Kurt Weller is a mess of a man, but a fucking great leader.

"Reade did tell us to use his spot."

He gets her acceptance and smirks.

"Try to go easy on her, alright? She's a bit more… optimistic than we're used to."

"I'm fine with optimistic. But she shows up humming at six A.M and I'm not responsible for my actions."

He chuckles, looks out into the common area.

"You better let her know soon, then. 'Cause she just stepped in and Richard is giving her a dirty look."

Richard. AKA the asshole who hates noise.

Tasha forces herself to stand up and meet her _partner_ at their joined desks.

"Good morning." Claire smiles. Extends a cup of coffee in her direction. She pauses.

"Morning." Her eyes are suspicious while she takes a sip of the liquid and she recognizes that she's in trouble, then. Pierce has this look of complicity and this _spark_ to her gaze and meets Tasha's staring-match head on. "How in the hell did you know I like Caramel Machiatto?"

"Your cup from yesterday afternoon. The order was written in quite huge letters."

"Do you always analyze people's coffee choices?"

"I analyze everything all the time."

She keeps on drinking because God knows she can use the caffeine, but she crooks an eyebrow at the woman.

"As long as you don't go paranoid on me."

"Nah, I got over that phase about four years ago." Claire snickers, leans against the side of her desk and Tasha rolls her eyes. "Seriously though, I move around so much that I like to bring something my partner enjoys while we work together."

Tasha wonders if besides being overly vigilant, the woman also has the talent of making people feel like douchebags for stupid things they say behind her back.

"I'm always down for free coffee."

"What kind of law enforcement agent would you be if you weren't?"

She rolls her eyes again, ignores how much she misses doing that towards Reade and sits down on her chair to finish some paperwork.

They get a case later on and it's rough.

Kids' bodies start showing up through the town. Beaten up, bruised, sharp bones under gloomy skin.

The drop zones have no connection besides easy escape routes. Weller gets closer and closer to bursting as the time goes by.

She spends her lunch break with the punching bag. She doesn't want to eat, feels like she doesn't deserve to, since the children obviously didn't have that _privilege_.

"This is connected to the tattoos."

Tasha turns her face to see the person, palms flat against the leather, steadying it.

"What are you talking about?"

She's out of breath. She doesn't mind.

The kids can't breathe, either.

The only difference is that her lungs will fill again. Theirs won't.

"They have to be." Claire says, taking a seat against the closest wall.

"Patterson hasn't found anything."

"There's no other reason. The news are being sent directly to this unit _through_ the FBI firewall. Who else would go through so much trouble just to exposed a serial killer?"

"A hacker using his ability for good?"

She frowns. Goes back to punching and they keep quiet for a few minutes.

"I don't think so. Something is telling me otherwise."

And that does it for her. That hits the nerve and if Reade was here, he'd be right beside her, throwing punches and kicks of his own. But he isn't. He isn't and Claire _is._

"You just got here. Why the fuck do you think you get to have _instincts_ about Sandstorm?"

Tasha steps aside, lets the bag swing front and back, stares at the blonde.

Claire visibly sighs, lifts her hand and puts a strand behind her hair in a quick movement before extending a brown bag in Tasha's direction.

"Onion rings?"

Her words disappear. The ones she wanted to let go in a rant. Her words disappear and her stomach grumbles.

"What is it with you and food offering?"

Claire gives her a small smile and shrugs.

What is it with this woman?

Tasha wants her best friend here with her. Not some stranger. Not someone who doesn't match her tone of voice when she's clearly pissed off. Not someone who offers her food when she doesn't deserve to eat, but desperately needs to.

She settles down carefully beside Claire.

"You know what one of the worst parts is?" Her partner asks and Tasha hums, takes a golden arch from the bag. "Parents live being scared. They love their children with all they've got and try to keep them safe. Safe from diseases, from danger, from themselves and it takes _literally_ three seconds for their kids to disappear and for their whole world to collapse."

"You talk like you've been through that."

"Not really. But I get the feeling." Claire takes a ring of her own, eats it before carrying on. "I have a son. Sam. He's four and he's amazing. Last year I let go of his hand on the park to pay for icecreams and when I looked down, he wasn't there. He'd only walked to the pond a few feet away, but those moments it took me to spot him were the worst of my life."

"And now we have to find a bunch of people and let them know that their kids are dead."

"Yeah." Claire sighs again and it feels appropriate.

She wants Reade beside her and Reade is not coming any time soon, so she swallows her _wants_ and puts on her big girl pants.

"I'm sorry for snapping."

"We're all on the edge. Cases like these just-"

"Yeah." She agrees and Claire doesn't quite smile by the quotation, but her face gets a tad lighter. "A piece of advice, by the way. Stay clear of Weller while we sort this out. He's got- history with these sorts of things."

"Trust me, I intend to. Last time I saw him Nas was trying to calm him down after he yelled Jane out of the room."

"He's got history with her too."

Claire frowns, turns a bit so their gazes can meet.

"With whom?"

"Jane." She shrugs. Then remembers her theory. "Both. I think. I'm just sure about Jane."

The blonde lets her mouth fall open an inch before shaking her head.

"I just got here. I don't need to be sucked into _that_."

They stand and her _partner_ hands her the rest of the snack.

"No, I'm fine."

"I've had my lunch already and I'm betting you didn't."

She takes the paper bag and walks away from the woman.

"Stop analysing me." Tasha points before leaving the room.

"Would if I could." She hears as she's halfway down the hall.

She misses Reade, but free coffee and food may do for now.

At least that's what she tells herself, anyway.

* * *

 **If you're seeing this, thank you for reading! I really appreciate it and don't forget to tell me your thoughts!**


	2. initiate the heart within me

Claire Pierce is crazy about her son. She truly is.

Besides her sister, she'd never loved anyone else so much.

The thing, though, is that she has no idea whatsoever what she's doing when it comes to raising him.

She tries and she puts her experience as an older sister to good use.

Most days, she thinks she is doing a good enough job.

Sam is polite to everyone and eats whatever he is given.

Some days, however, she feels like crying.

"He's mean, Mama!"

"Baby, you can't push someone, no matter what."

"But-"

"No buts. No excuses."

"I hate you!" He screams it and the next thing she knows, she's on the floor, awkwardly trying to steady herself. Her son had pushed her. The sandy-blond haired boy running towards his room had just pushed her and she'd fallen from her crouched position.

Claire takes a moment to gather herself. She wants to scream too because there's no manual for this. For teaching someone how to _be_.

Sam doesn't know the word yet to describe what it was about his classmate that set him off, but she does.

That kid is turning into his parents. Two egocentric people who think that age rating is overrated and, consequently, comment everything and anything in front of the boy.

When she stands up, she gets a foldable chair from the laundry room and sets it in a corner, the furthest away from the TV and any other source of entertainment she can find.

And then, then she breathes. Claire breathes and walks to her son's room.

The door isn't closed, because that's a deal that's been going on since he was born and an open door means safety and hearing range. Sam doesn't dare to close his door, and she gives herself a tap on the back for that, at least.

When she enters, he's sitting on the ground, back leaned against his bed and little forehead in a crease.

"You don't walk away, young man. Do you hear me?"

He puffs and she sees his father, then. In the crossing of his arms and the turn of his head to the side opposite to her.

She feels like swearing at his dad, too. Matthew is great and does everything in his power to help Claire out, but Matthew travels and travels and travels and is, at the very least, inconsistent.

"Sam, answer me." Another try. Another failed one, as well. Sitting down beside him is the next choice.

"I know you're angry baby, but you can't take that out on people."

"You didn't let me talk."

Claire sighs. He's right.

"And I'm sorry for that. You just have to know that that doesn't excuse your behavior."

"What's behavior?"

"The way you act."

"But you didn't let me talk, Mama."

"Sam, not everyone is going to let you talk. You can't push them. You can't be aggressive."

"Thomas is just _so mean_. He said Wendy had bad hair 'cause it wasn't like his mommy's."

Oh dear Lord. Oh dear Lord she wants to punch someone until they swallow their teeth.

"When things like that happen, you call the teacher. You tell her and let her handle it. Got it?"

Sam gives her the tiniest nod.

"I want to hear it, love. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Mama. I do."

"Good. The time-out chair is by the entrance. You get ten minutes there and then I want an apology for pushing me."

" _Mom_." He groans. He actually groans and if he has this much attitude at four, she can't imagine how he's going to be like by sixteen.

"Go."

As he slowly rises and drags his feet, she notices he needs a haircut.

Maybe Valerie is free this weekend. They can drop him off at the mall's children salon and get coffee at the diner right across.

He needs a haircut and mama needs a bit of gossip with his aunt.

Later, when he's in bed and she's curled up on the couch with the TV volume turned down, she calls Val.

"Steve and I are through." Her sister says into the speaker.

"I'm sorry. Are you okay?"

"I don't know. I don't think he was the love of my life, but he was good company."

"That's hard, sis."

"I'll be fine. How are you, anyway?"

"Sam got in a fight at school."

"Sam? My sweet, deep-dimpled nephew?"

"Apparently this kid offended his friend and he got mad."

"At least he wasn't the bully."

"No, the Anderson's kid was."

"That explains it, then."

"For you and I, maybe and I get why he was angry but he can't go around getting physical, Val."

"And what did Matt have to say about it?"

"He was glad I _handled_ it."

Her sister groans and Claire gets the sneaky suspicion that this is where her son got the habit.

"I know he's your best friend and your baby daddy, but he is also an asshole."

"Tell me about it." She mumbles. There's silence and it's comfortable, to imagine them both, sitting in similar settings, in similar ways and _is Valerie seriously watching the same thing she is?_

"And how did your first week go?"

"Fine, I guess. The team is alright and so is my partner. Things move so fast, though. Some days we get two cases, one after the other."

"You're the one who says you got the calling to protect and serve."

"I'm not complaining, asshat." She rolls her eyes. Can imagine the woman on the other side of the line doing the same. "I'm stunned, that's all."

"Stunned is good."  
"I guess."

More silence, more paying attention to the little lines on the sofa.

"Hey, sis?"

"Yeah?"

"I think I'm pregnant."

Claire loves her sister. The same as she loves her son.

Claire sometimes has no idea of what she's doing raising a child.

She can't force her mind to imagine her little sister raising one, too.

°°•°°

Getting a phone call from Reade hurts more than it should. He doesn't sound good, doesn't sound any less angry either, but he calls and says that he only has access to the phone once a week and that he wanted to talk to her.

It hurts, but Tasha feels the damn hope climbing up her chest. She hates it. Hates him for making her go through all of this too.

"How are you?" She asks nevertheless, and she hears how he chuckles.

"I didn't call for that kind of talk."

Hope is a dangerous and foolish thing. She hates it.

"Why did you, then?"

"I need you to talk to Weller. Make him see that three months is way too-"

"Reade," Interrupting him hurts. Maybe not as bad as hearing his voice so detached, so cold. But it hurts. "I'm not doing that. You _need_ those three months. You need to figure out your life."

"Jones is dead, Tasha." His voice falls to a whisper. An intimidating whisper. Something to make her cave in, something meant to make her agree with him. "What he did or didn't do died with him as well."

"If it had, you wouldn't have gotten mixed up with drugs."

"I'm done with them now, Tasha. I really am. Tell Weller that, please."

"I believe you." She whispers as well. She whispers and doesn't mind how her eyes sting and her teeth desperately want to grid together. "But you're never gonna get better if I keep bailing you out."

She hangs up. She can't take it anymore.

She's strong as hell. Always has been and always will be. She has messed up, but she's found her footing again. Reade can, too. He just needs to keep going, he just needs to keep pushing towards that finish line.

And she needs to stop carrying him towards it.

Abuela makes pancakes when she goes over on Sunday and Tasha dips into the softness that her grandma's house always brings.

Henry arrives late, as usual, and despite always coming to these lunches, she knows he is never on time on purpose.

He's never on time because he never managed to forgive Abuela for not looking after them when dad left and mom was knees deep in whiskey.

He arrives late and never managed to forgive their grandmother, but he's her brother and she still feels the duty to bust his balls.

Little kicks under the table, stollen lettuces from his plate, a gentle smack upside the head when he's almost snoring on the couch.

It makes her feel more in control, more like herself.

But he's also a good guy, that brother of hers. He waits long enough for abuela to fall asleep on her armchair after eating before asking about her situation.

"How's Reade?"

"I have no idea."

"Have you two talked?"

"Not really."

She flips through the channels, doesn't make eye contact because then things would get too dangerous and too realistic and she'd have to poke him somewhere to make the atmosphere lighter again.

"That bad, hm?"

"Probably." She bites the inside of her cheek and steals the pillow he's resting against.

"Do you remember Nick, from high school?"

"The one whose sister overdosed last year?"

"Yeah." Henry nods, takes his pillow back in a quick motion and she smacks his upper arm. "I ran into him the other day and he seems a little better, but he says he still feels guilty."

Tasha frowns. Keeps facing the TV. She can't look at him. She can't look at her brother. Can't let the stinging in her eyes return.

"Guilty for what?"

"He said he knew about her using and that she'd promised she'd quit and when she didn't, he did nothing."

"It's not his fault."

"That's what I've told him. I just don't think he can believe it."

Damn Henry. Damn unforgiving, good Henry. Damn his extensive knowledge of her and his ability for comparisons.

"You've done something to help your friend, baby girl. Who knows if he'd be alive if you hadn't."

She nods and she doesn't look at her brother. She tells him not to call her _baby girl_ , instead.

(even though he's been saying that since third grade, when he grew taller than her)

He puts his arm around her, kisses her temple and the _only_ reason she leans her head against his shoulder is because he's hogged the best pillow and there is no where else to rest because of that.

She doesn't lean her head against him because she can use the comfort. Of course not. Her grandma's house is already too much indulging in that area.

The stinging in her eyes is not back by the time they settle on a channel.

Of course not.

°°•°°

"You're late." Tasha states as soon as she drops her bag on the desk.

"Thanks, Sherlock, hadn't managed to notice that."

"Oh, so you're funny now."

She rolls her eyes, hands the woman the second cup she'd been holding and heads to where the team is gathering around the widescreen.

"Is everything alright, though?" Tasha stops at her side, drops a palm to her upper arm and Claire smiles, nods.

"Yeah, it's all fine. Just mom stuff." She shrugs and her partner's hand falls away. "And New York traffic."

Tasha hums in understanding (with a bit of mistrust hidden underneath) and they turn their attention to Patterson as she starts to explain the case.

Claire's getting used to things. To being fed information instead of having to dig for it. To look around and see calm and organization and bright lights, instead of the warm, woodsy colors of the precinct and the everyday rush of officers.

Her mind takes a while to mold to new behaviors, but it has no problem in detecting them right off the bat.

Kurt always walks into a room first. It doesn't matter where they are, he's always first. And she knows he isn't cocky. She knows it isn't so much about being a show off as it is about protection.

Nas has doe eyes when she looks at Weller. Not like Jane, but with a similar sentiment.

Both women admire him, that much is not a secret. The same way Patterson and Zapata also do. The same way Claire suspects she'll come to one day.

The difference is the way Nas and Jane naturally gravitate towards him, the way they are always the one argumenting with him, or against him.

He has telltale signs that he feels it, too. Not the eyes, he's not expressive in that. The little twitches in his brows, however, are. The jumping muscles on his jaw. The tiny smirk he breaks out when either (or both) of the two women are around.

He's a mess, and Tasha was right.

Patterson is a bit more tricky. A bit harder to decipher. Maybe because she's so used to cracking impossible codes, she's learned to encrypt her feelings.

But Patterson is a roughed up soul that, somehow, manages to stay bright.

Claire sees it by the smiles and the little nerdy jokes the woman often throws her way. Patterson has her pain locked down deep, and Claire sees a lot of her sister in that.

"Wanna tell me why you were late?"

She stops mid bite. Looks up to see Tasha with an arched eyebrow and her sandwich down. She looks sideways, next. Patterson had come along for lunch and the woman shrugs, keeps on chewing her food.

"I already told you."

"You dismissed me, that's what you did."

"I-" Claire frowns.

She has no problem reading people, but Tasha is inconsistent. Tasha snaps and fumes, but Tasha has soft touches and easy banter. She is proud of her observing capacity and, apparently, she got partnered up with someone who knows how to dodge it.

"Look, I just gotta have a heads up if it's going to be an usual thing."

Something clicks inside her. Something deep that she'd forgotten she had. It clicks because Zapata has this _steady_ look in her eyes and this nonchalance aura that just sets Claire off.

"My son stuck by his friend and today he had to _apologize_ for that. So he wasn't that great."

Patterson coughs up and oh, _yeah_ , the woman probably didn't know about Sam.

Tasha's shoulders fall. Her mouth turns into a tight line. Claire wants to say more, but she doesn't. She wants to say that her sister is pregnant and her sister probably doesn't have the stability to care for a baby.

She doesn't. She finishes her lunch and talks to Patterson instead. About D&D and the flow of new smartphones that have been making their way into the market lately.

Before they leave, Zapata excuses herself to go to the bathroom. Claire tries to shake off the flare that starts up again by the woman's voice.

"Reade started doing that." Patterson sighs once Tasha is out of earshot.

"Being late?" Claire asks and is met with a nod.

"When things got bad, he started showing up at ten A.M., sometimes later. She was always worried."

The _oh_ that leaves her mouth is way too small, way too simple, to express the pieces coming together in her mind.

Her partner can't handle another disappointment. Tasha can't handle another trainwreck.

On the next day, Claire makes sure she's half an hour early and she smiles bright and witty at Zapata's relieved look upon seeing her.

It lights a different kind of flame in her chest.

* * *

 **can someone explain why in God's name we are getting month-long breaks so often?**  
 **ugh**  
 **and nas**  
 **my baby :(**  
 **(I'M SORRY IF THAT'S A SPOILER BUT I HAD TO LET IT OUT SOMEWHERE)**  
 **ps: chapter title from Son, by Sleeping at Last**


	3. scared of the hope in my head

**audrey esparza owns my soul and next week's episode is going to destroy me**

* * *

For one moment only, Tasha wishes she could have control of her life. She wants to be balanced and she wants to laugh as freely as Claire does.

Just for a moment, she wishes she wasn't damaged goods.

She feels herself getting drawn towards her partner more and more. Towards the warmth and the brightness.

That sort of feeling is not trustworthy. That sort of thing rips you up and tears you apart.

Tasha tries to stop it. Tries to keep her distance and tries to tuck everything away.

(It's been so long since someone has made her feel this way and she doesn't _want_ to shake it off, she doesn't _want_ to stop feeling it, but she's a survivor and a survivor does not allow someone else to provide shelter)

For one moment, she wishes she wasn't damaged goods.

She wishes she could have just _one_ ordinary partnership too.

"Trivia night!" Jane calls when they are packing up for the day and the hair on the back of her neck stands up.

Their team is the last one on the office, so she lifts her head to see Kurt with that foolish face he gets every time Jane is involved, Patterson already nodding and Nas and Claire with matching disturbed expressions.

"We haven't done one in so long." The tattooed woman carries on, getting more excited by the second. "For sure not since Claire's been here."

Tasha's eyes fall on her partner again. The blonde is looking at the ground now, pretending to be too busy rearranging her ponytail.

"I do have a new Pokémon game I've been meaning to try out." Patterson comments and there's an unified groan from the rest of them.

"As long as I get a babysitter, I'm fine with it, but I don't do Pokémon." Claire sighs, before settling her purse on her shoulder.

"What do you mean you don't-" Patterson is exasperated now, truly offend, and Tasha holds down her instinct to snort.

"Trivia night means _trivia_." Kurt interrupts and the tech attempts to hide her sulking. Tasha knows better.

"And booze." She offers. If they are doing this, she's getting at least a good drink out of it.

"And booze." Kurt nods and Jane _beams_.

Tasha had almost missed it, the way the woman had gotten lighter and lighter as they closed in on Sandstorm, as Roman got to go live with her.

Now it's _almost_ annoying.

"Tomorrow sounds good?" Jane continues and shit, what she wouldn't give to just skip the gaming part and stick to the liquor.

She can't, though. So she nods along with everyone else but Nas.

"I think I'll have to miss out on this one."

"Like hell you will." Weller steps forward, to stand beside the NSA agent and dear fucking God, he's got a soft look for that one too. "You've escaped all the other ones."

Nas manages this tiny, special smile she's got reserved for Kurt as well and if Tasha has messed up partnerships, Weller has messed up love interests.

"Yeah, Kamal." Tasha adds because she cannot take any more of this crap. "If I've gotta go through it, so do you."

The comment seems to close the discussion and the next day goes by way too fast for her. They get a case, but nothing too challenging, so everything is done in time and they actually get to leave when they are supposed to.

She's never been too fond of these events, but she gets to Jane's place with enough time to spare so she can one: get a headstart on the alcohol and two: avoid having everyone staring at her when she's the last to show up.

Tasha expected Jane and Roman to be alone, barely starting to set things aside. When she gets in, though, she sees Weller and Nas and she forces herself to chat with Roman instead of paying attention to the romantic trio's interaction.

"I come bearing wine." Patterson announces as soon as she steps foot into the place. Kurt rolls his eyes and Nas sighs in relief.

Claire steps in right behind the tech and Tasha manages a smile, then.

She wonders how, every single fucking time, she can feel incredibly more comfortable when one of her partners are in the same place as her.

They settle down and while Patterson starts sorting the game, Claire finds a spot beside Tasha on the couch.

"Everything worked out alright?" She asks, takes a few peanuts from the bowl Jane sets on the table.

"Yeah, he loves his nanny, so it was fine." Claire sighs, accepts the beer Roman offers. "I do have to get home before ten, though."

She shouldn't really do anything, but when the woman stands up to help Patterson, Tasha sets an alarm for 9:30.

They form pairs and Claire teams up with Nas since Jane and Kurt are already sitting by themselves in the loveseat.

(honestly, how appropriate)

She ends up with Roman and Patterson is the moderator.

She gets a bit drunk when they are midway through, so she sticks with water for the rest of the night.

Tasha doesn't really have the patience for these games, especially when everyone decides to be super serious about it. But it's fun. She honestly has fun and Roman is a pretty chill guy, for a former serial-killer.

"That didn't count." Kurt points out when Claire and Nas get a right answer a second after their time was up.

"Judge, what do you think?" Nas asks and they all turn to Patterson.

"Considering we're only human, I think it was a fair win."

"That is such bull!" Weller continues and they laugh.

"Why, just 'cause you're losing?" Claire arches an eyebrow and Kurt puffs, crossing his arms.

It's truly, truly nice. She feels light and in the moment and warm on her own account.

That is, up until the point when there's a question about basketball and Reade comes crashing through her mind.

Reade and his absence, Reade and his coach and his fucked up memory.

Thankfully, they are close to the end by then and she doesn't have to keep up her smile for much longer.

Jane offers a rematch, trying to make up for Kurt's scorn on officially coming in third place. She doesn't want to and her chest is heavier and heavier by each nod she sees her colleagues doing.

For once, she wishes she wasn't damaged goods.

Her phone vibrates before they can start and she nudges Claire.

"Nine thirty." Tasha meets her partner's gaze and feels a bit of _something_ when the blue eyes get wide.

"Already?"Claire wonders and she hums in response. "Guys, I'm going to pass on this one."

"Too scared to surrender your title?" Kurt smirks as the blonde stands up and fuck fuck fuck Tasha misses the warmth right away and she can't feel this, she can't go down this road.

"I know you're my boss, but screw you for that." The man laughs and it's so wrong, to be surrounded by so much happiness without Reade to share it with. "I'm not scared, I just got a fifteen-year-old with school tomorrow as a babysitter."

As the woman says her goodbyes, Tasha wants to go, too. She doesn't want to play another round and she doesn't want to stay without Reade.

She keeps her seat, regardless. Because no matter how much she doesn't want to be damaged goods, she is.

°°•°°

Valerie is quiet and Claire is pretty sure her heart is trying to escape her chest.

The doctor is still talking and the only confirmation she has that her sister is listening is the increasing pressure in their joined hands.

"Basically-" Val speaks, interrupts the woman in the coat. Her voice is hollow. "Basically the _baby_ is attached outside the uterus?"

"The embryo." Dr. Gallet says it softly and Claire doesn't know if it is intent on distancing the image of a chubby, green-eyed infant that can never be or to simply infuse the right terminology.

" _The embryo._ " Her sister practically spits the words, but doesn't open her mouth again.

"What's the next step?" Claire jumps in, then. Because she could never imagine her sister raising a child, but she's never felt more heartbroken before.

"The pregnancy is very early on and since there has been no pain, we can administer methotrexate. It'll stop the placenta from developing."

She looks at Val. Looks at the auburn hair and the fairy-like nose she used to make fun of when they were small. She looks at one of the people she loves most and she wishes she could take all this tragedy away.

Valerie nods, gaze on the floor.

The hours, the procedure and the _embryo_ come and go. Her sister needs to stay overnight for observation and, while the redhead is almost asleep on the big big big hospital bed, Claire's phone rings.

"I-"

"Go answer it." Val mumbles, eyes closed and blanket up to her chin.

She clicks the green button as she closes the bedroom door behind her.

"Pierce."

"Hey." Tasha's tone is soft and Claire doesn't want that, she wants normalcy, she wants her nephew/niece to still exist.

"Hey."

"Just wanted to check up on you. See how you're doing."

"I don't know." She leans against a wall, swallows her heart back down. At least, she tries to. It still feels like it's trying to jump out of her chest. "She was hurting a lot when the meds started working but it seems like that's over."

"Have you guys talked?"

"No, not really. She's cried for five minutes and then nothing. She would probably talk to her ex, though. That is," The chuckle is unwelcome and dark and why does her fucking heart keeps trying to run away? "if he wasn't out of town."

"I'm sorry, Claire."

"Yeah." She whispers it. What is she supposed to say? "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

She swallows. She shouldn't do it. She really shouldn't. But Valerie doesn't talk and Matthew is with Sam and she needs someone, she just needs someone to be there with her.

"Do you have any plans tonight?"

"Not really."

"Would you mind coming over for a bit?"

"I'm on my way."

"No, Tasha, I didn't mean _now_."

"I was just finishing up some paperwork. Nothing you can't help me with tomorrow."

Claire feels a pull on her lips. She doesn't smile, but she feels the tingling urge to.

Half an hour later, there's a knock on the door and her partner's head peeks in. They take seats on the chairs across the hall.

Val deserves privacy and today, of all days, is not the one where she meets Tasha.

"Mini-donuts?" Claire's eyebrow arches when she opens the bag Zapata places on her lap.

"Thought it wouldn't hurt."

They share the treat in silence and it is becoming a constant, the delicate moments over food.

"Thank you for coming."

"That's what partners are for, right?"

Their gazes meet and this time, she smiles. Albeit a small one, she smiles.

"Right."

"Being helpless sucks, uhm?" Tasha keeps looking at her with those soft brown eyes and it seems to put her escaping heart back where it belongs.

"Like nothing else." Claire sighs, leans her head against the wall. "Why do bad things keep happening to good people?"

A beat. Another one. It hasn't even been a day and she already misses her sister's bright aura.

"My abuela says that it's supposed to teach us not to take happiness for granted."

"Do you believe it?"

"No, actually. I think that's bullshit." Tasha and her sharpness, Tasha and her swearing. Claire is getting too much comfort out of it. "Stuff like this just… happen, I guess. Not really about good or bad. Just life."

"You're probably right."

Just life. Just screwed up, old life.

They finish off the donuts, she crumbles up the paper in her hand, squeezes it until her knuckles are white.

"Is it weird that I was so scared that she _was_ pregnant and now I feel like I lost a part of my family?"

"A child is a big deal." Tasha shrugs, turns a little on her chair so she can face Claire. "I mean, I can't imagine how I'd feel if my brother told me he was going to be a dad. But I'd love the kid no matter what."

She nods. Lets a breath go through her lips and tries her damn hardest not to cry. Claire leans to her side, instead. She leans over and hugs her partner in a single, fluid movement. Tasha is startled for a second, before returning the embrace.

" _Thank you."_ She whispers, ignoring the stubborn few tears that drop, ignoring how she breathes the woman in, ignoring how it soothes her, even the slightest bit.

Claire hugs Tasha and wishes her nephew/niece was alright and that her sister's soul wasn't too torn.

°°•°°

It's not until a month in that they get to experience her partner's tactical ability.

The case is particularly tough. Not like the one about the children, but tough. They can't catch a break on it. They close in on a suspect, a location, and as soon as they get in formation around the perimeter, they are showered with bullets and explosives.

Patterson gets more and more frustrated, going over every single way the suspects could have been tipped off and she finds nothing.

Claire spends the whole third day trying to help on the lab and when Tasha comes back from the field trip with Jane, she goes there, too.

She's got great timing, though, because as she reaches the main table, she sees her partner's brow furrow.

"Go back a little." Claire requests, leaning forward and Tasha notices how everyone starts paying attention to the screen Pierce is focused on. "There, do you see the red reflection?"

"It's sunny out." She shrugs and before she's even done, Patterson is shaking her head.

"No, no, Claire is right." Buttons are clicked and the image is zoomed in. "It's a bare brick wall, they don't _glow_."

"I've seen this before." Nas walks closer, then and Tasha's been doing this job long enough to know that they are very very close to a break.

"It's military." Claire says, let's a breathy chuckle go. "Yeah, it is. I remember hearing about a prototype like this from my mom. They were testing out these cameras they could hide in cracks. They were supposed to be untraceable."

"Aside from the reflection the lens caused when they were hit by sunlight." Nas nods, presses on her tablet, confirming their theory. "That project was tossed aside when a terrorist group got hold of a mock-up."

"Do you think that's how they know when we're coming? Hidden cameras?" She asks.

"I've checked everything. There's no way there were leaks." Patterson squares her shoulders. "A Camera is the only logical explanation."

"Maybe we can cut their signal?" Tasha keeps on trying and Claire has a blueprint pulled up on the desk's touch screen, is quiet in the way she gets when she's pulling and stretching ideas.

"No. They've gone through all this trouble to _have_ security. If we cut it off, they'll have their guard up and we might as well lose them for good." Patterson sighs, rubs her forehead.

"Nas, do you think you can get access to the prototype's settings?" Pierce doesn't shift her gaze from her task, finger drawing patterns and codewords.

"Yeah, give me a sec." Three seconds, some taps on the tablet. "What are we looking for?"

"Where and how the images are sent, right?"

Patterson is the one who says it, eyes following Claire's movements and Tasha has that feeling of being an intruder, has that feeling of brains connecting.

"If there's a wireless connection, we can loop the recording from a few days back. It'll buy us enough time to organize and burst in." Claire leans back from the desk, examining her work.

A plan. Claire's developed a plan for them, including each exit of the building and the exact number of agents.

It's been a month and while the woman explains how the tactic works, it is the first time Tasha doesn't see a trace of her personality shining through.

Claire is somber and concentrated and goes over every single detail with Weller.

Patterson loops the cameras, they get in line with what had been agreed upon and, honestly, the whole thing lasts twenty minutes.

A part of the team enters through one side, cornering the men on the other. The ones who try to escape by the opposite entrance are intervened by the other team waiting outside.

They get five wounded on their part and three dead suspects. Still, the _leader_ is arrested and a confession happens.

It's a relief all of them can use.

She leaves the interrogation room with an extra bounce to her steps and she crosses paths with Claire. Her hand moves on its own. She doesn't think about it.

She wraps her fingers around the woman's wrist. Not a lot of pressure, barely there at all, but she does it to stop her partner in place.

"Great job today." She smiles. Claire does, too.

"I'm just happy it worked out."

"I knew you were supposed to be good at that, I just never realised you were so fast."

"The perks of plotting revenge on my sister's pranks."

The blue eyes gloss over, and Tasha lets the wrist go.

She starts walking again and her Claire follows.

"How did it go with Smith?"

"He confessed." Tasha says with pride and it's been a long ass time since she'd last cracked a suspect on her own.

They move around the locker room with small talk and it feels so easy, to dive into teasing remarks while she sorts her stuff to go home. It feels too easy and she spots Reade's old locker and she misses him. Misses the banter she had with him, as well.

Claire is amazing and she hadn't been expecting that. Hadn't been expecting to start seeing the woman as an addition to the team instead of a simple spot-filler.

(she hadn't been expecting to be drawn to the woman's _warmth_ either, but that's something she's been pushing to the darkest corner of her mind since trivia)

"Sam gets home from his dad's today." Pierce keeps on talking and she forces herself to listen, closing her locker's door and turning around to look at her partner.

Claire still has her back to Tasha and as the woman pulls her sweater over her head and as her undershirt rolls up a bit, a bruise comes into sight.

"What happened there?"

"Uhm? Where?" The blonde twists herself a bit, trying to find what she means. But then Claire freezes, her face twitching a bit before going back to folding the piece she'd just taken off. "One of the guys got a shot in on the vest."

Tasha crosses her arms, concentrates on not swearing at the woman for not mentioning getting hit by a fucking bullet. Reminds herself that they are partners, yes, but if it hit the vest, why _should_ Claire say anything?

She hums in understanding, leans against the metal behind her.

The one she's drawn to goes back to talking about her son and her sister and Tasha pays attention. Chirps in here and there.

Reade is an asshole, though. Every time he shows up in her mind, she feels her doubts unsettling and clawing their way up her chest. He's a douchebag and she misses him so bad.

"You okay?" Claire is facing her, now. Deep frown in place, eyes so freaking worried because, apparently, she's been silent and staring for too long. Tasha nods. She nods and she thinks she's a good liar, but then Claire steps up, places both her palms on Tasha's upper arms.

The hug, days ago now, on that hospital hallway had started a waterfall of little touches and God _,_ she wants to be happy for those, she usually _is_ , but her best friend is fucking gone and doesn't have time for her, now that he's sorting out his life.

"You don't look okay." Claire says it and damn her, damn Reade, damn every single partner she's ever had for managing to hit and mess up a new part of her life.

When another hug comes, she is the one who clutches back. She is the one who breathes in and flexes her fingers.

When another hug comes, the part of her that is drawn to the woman fucking _leaps_.

* * *

 **don't forget to let me know what you thought and I'll see you next Wednesday**  
 **ps: chapter title from Incomplete, by James Bay**


	4. to figure out, to love

**not super related but I'm very music driven, so I have a playlist for this fic. if y'all would like to hear it, I can make it public or something, just let me know in the comments.**

* * *

"The next time you leave your towel in my bed, I'll put it on fire."

Claire understood very early on that her sister wanted to be treated like everything was the same. First, she'd be cautious and feel like tiptoeing on eggshells. But Val would look at her as if she was out of her mind.

Still, she would keep on doing it. Until two days after they left the hospital, that is. Because then, Valerie was angry and tired and sore, so the redhead had snapped and yelled and Claire had given up.

Her sister was hurting and scared, but she was not _breaking_ and it took losing her cool to get that point across.

Valerie groans as said damp cloth is thrown at her.

"Alright _mom_."

She glares. Valerie smirks.

Claire heads for the kitchen, has about twenty minutes before Matt and Sam come shouting into the apartment.

"Speaking of mom," Her sister follows and nothing that starts like that is a conversation she wants to have. "She'll be in town next week."

"Oh Lord." She sighs, closes her eyes for a second before getting the leftovers from the fridge. "Wasn't she supposed to be in Washington until November?"

"Apparently, she got a break and wanted to come see us."

"That's new." Claire snorts, thinks of what exactly she'll do with the chicken before getting some sauce and a pan. "Are you going to tell her?"

"Should I?" Val is leaning against the counter, rolling an apple in her hands.

"I don't know, hun. She _is_ our mother."

"Grandma raised us."

"Yeah." She puts some pre cut bacon to fry, gets a soda for her and sparkly water for her companion.

"I know she loves us and all but it's just-" Val opens the drinks while Claire stirs the food. How easy it is, to go back to the routine they had when they shared an apartment. "I couldn't tell her when I got my first kiss, how can I tell her that I was pregnant for a minute?"

"Well, it's your decision. I'm here either way."

She starts chopping up some carrots, taking the chicken apart.

Five minutes later, she hears her son's voice down the hall.

They have dinner and her boy gets sauce all over his shirt. Matt makes Val laugh and before he leaves, she finds out he's going to be away for a month.

"It's a really good deal, Clairie."

She rolls her eyes at the nickname, agrees with him anyway.

He's got a good job and he is inconsistent, but he tries and he loves Sam. She knows that.

"Skype on the weekends?" Claire offers. He smiles big and bright. Matthew is an asshole, and she loves him way too much for her own good.

As she tucks her son in bed, she gives him little kisses. He falls asleep holding her hand and he could very well be holding her heart too, for how incredible he is.

Claire drops down on the couch beside her sister, curls her toes under the woman's thigh.

"Damn it, you're cold." Valerie squirms away and she stretches her legs completely. Soon enough, though, the throw blanket is spread over both of them.

She takes care of her sister, but Val has her moments too.

They settle on So You Think You Can Dance and she gets lost on the movements in sync to the songs.

"We should go clubbing." Val says.

"I'm thirty-two years old."

"So? Does that mean you can't have fun?"

"I have lots of fun. Right between running after criminals and making Sam put on his uniform."

"C'mon. We used to go dancing _all_ the time."

"When we were _twenty_."

"Claire, I need this. I need to dance it off."

She sighs. Looks over and, for a moment, remembers Valerie with pigtails and missing two front teeth.

"You better find somewhere good."

Her sister grins, pulls out her phone instantly, starts listing out places after a few minutes.

There's a woman on the show that looks like Tasha.

Claire still feels where the woman's fingertips pressed against her back.

"Do you mind if I bring someone with?"

"That depends on who that someone is."

"My partner. I think she could use a night out as well."

Val frowns and Claire meets her gaze head on. After a beat, the redhead nods.

She can still feel the place where Tasha's fingers flexed against her and she can still feel the woman's shirt against her palms.

Tasha had been staring out with those soft brown eyes and something inside her had stood in attention, something inside her bloomed a little bit more when she'd felt the arms sliding against her waist.

Reade, whoever he is, has left more damage behind then he probably realises.

"You're really getting attached, hm?"

"I'm trying not to."

She is. She wants to see the team as friends. She also has an understanding that once Tasha's old partner comes back, Claire will have to go.

She's trying not to get attached, so still feeling Zapata's fingertips against her back means nothing more than being worried for a potential friend.

That's what partners are for, right?

°°•°°

She's going to see her best friend on the weekend.

In literally two days, she'll be sitting across Reade.

She'd gotten the call early in the morning and he hadn't been the one to do it, but it was in his name and there is not much she wouldn't do for him.

So on Sunday, she's going to get her ass out of bed at an ungodly hour, take a shower and drive herself to the clinic.

Tasha is nervous. It's been almost two months.

Still, she's seeing him and she misses him and, hopefully, he is better.

First, though, she's going _dancing_. She thinks about maybe telling him that, but the meeting is not really about her, so perhaps she can keep it to herself for a little while. At least until she knows he'll laugh at her.

"Stop doing that." Claire gives her ribs a little nudge.

"Doing what?"

"Fumbling with your waistline. You look great."

"I've never worn a crop top before." She sighs. She hasn't. And it's weird. To be wearing jeans that reach so high and still have some flesh out.

"Well, you _are_. So own it."

Her partner smiles, rolls her eyes a few seconds later when Tasha's fingers unconsciously go to the rim of her pants again.

Claire reaches out, takes the nervous hand into her calmer ones and just keeps holding it.

(and it is fucking hilarious, really, how Missy trembling herself is the one to calm her down. She's seen it, time and time again, how every time something stressful comes up, the blonde folds and unfolds her upper limbs frantically)

The sound is loud. A kind of loud that takes getting used to and, thankfully, they chose a club with little tables and places to sit. Still, they stand by the bar.

"Nina is here!" Valerie says it, or screams it, eyes shining and virgin Manhattan in hand, as a responsible designated driver. "I'm gonna go meet her."

As the redhead tries to squeeze a path away, Claire breathes and lets her smile go.

"You don't like this Nina person?"

"She's cool. Val's known her since we moved here."

Tasha swallows her shot. Notes how her palm is still against the woman's and Jesus, she shouldn't be so freaking _giddy_ about it.

"So what is it?"

Their gazes meet for a moment, Claire's checking _something_ before:

"We've had a thing."

She nods. What the hell is she supposed to comment on that?

"Did it end badly?"

"It never started. Not really." Her partner sips her Mojito. "We sleep together. Then we have this toxic aftermath and stay away for a few months."

"And then the cycle starts again."

"Exactly."

"I've been there."

"How did it work out?"

"She hated my guts and I started seeing my yoga teacher until Reade got into a fight with him."

Claire lets go of her hand to put a lock of hair behind her ear and Tasha doesn't know if she's more relieved or unsettled by the lack of contact.

They wait for the two to come back and her breath doesn't catch when she sees Nina, her grip on her glass doesn't tighten.

Nina is beautiful, but that's no surprise. Dark hair, dark skin, dark eyes. Claire and the woman would make such a fucking gorgeous couple.

Valerie's friend is nice as well. Nice and charming and tall.

"I love this song." Tasha smiles when the reggaeton rhythm starts playing.

By this point, they are closer to the dance floor, but she's still holding back a bit. Which is ridiculous, quite honestly. Henry would piss himself if he saw her.

Anxious about dancing.

Yeah, she'd piss herself too if the situations were reversed.

Dancing was the one safe thing they had growing up. Both alone and together. Dancing their hearts out to any beat that would sound.

And now, now she _loves that fucking song_ and she wants to move to it so bad, but Claire is there and looking at her, expecting and how can she let herself go without regretting it?

"For God's sake, it's a club! Have some fun!" Valerie screams over the music, pushes both Tasha and her sister further into the dancing horde.

"She's right." Claire smiles, shakes her shoulders in time to Shakira's voice.

Tasha laughs, she laughs and when her partner takes _both_ her hands and starts leading her around, she allows it.

Because there is booze involved and she really really loves this song and Claire is smiling so fucking big and has her hands all over Tasha's waist and back and palms.

She dances to Chantaje and it feels amazing. So freaking amazing and she's anxious the entire time. It is worth it and she thinks Claire and her dance very well together.

Christ, she is wearing a crop top, boyfriend jeans and letting her partner (who she is definitely, undoubtedly, fucking-impossible-to-deny _drawn_ to) guide her in a great routine to a song she absolutely adores.

When the final note hits, she's face to face with Claire, collarbones touching and both kinda leaning against each other, and she's laughing so hard her cheeks hurt.

"You have to admit that felt good." Nina smirks when they come back and Tasha sees no trace of jealousy on the woman's eyes.

Honestly, why should she?

"A little bit."

"A little bit?" Claire fakes shock, but her smile is coming back before she's even finished.

Tasha curses whatever is out there for putting this person in her path. Curses whatever is out there for giving her the ability to start feeling this way for someone she probably will never have and will probably never be good enough for.

Still, there's the lingering ache on her cheeks and the pounding in her chest.

She's seeing her best friend on Sunday and she's nervous and excited and, if he asks about his replacement, he's going to see right through her.

°°•°°

Some popcorn, a fuzzy blanket and a movie session with her son and her sister.

It's been awhile since a Saturday felt so calm.

The credits for Finding Nemo are rolling, Val trying to decide which film to put on next and Claire looking through the photos from the previous night.

"You should just kiss her already."

"Uhm?"

She doesn't quite hear it. She is frozen at this particular shot where Tasha is mid laugh and she is smirking.

They'd been posing, but Nina had said this line and Claire may or may not have cursed and Tasha had burst up.

The brunette had just laughed and Claire's stomach had tightened and released and _something_ in her had bloomed a bit more, had become a bit more bright.

"Your partner. You've gotta hit that, sis."

She does hear it, this time.

Claire glances at Sam, making sure he's still passed out against her chest (honestly, this is the first time he's made it through _half_ this movie).

"What in Lord's name are you talking about?"

"Oh please," Valerie accentuates the word, sends her a look over her shoulder. "I could see, smell and touch the sexual tension between you two."

"I think you might have actually gone insane."

"Babe, you were holding her hand for most of the night, you danced like you knew each other for years and she tensed up the _second_ Nina would come closer to you."

Claire gives the inside of her lips little bites, looks back at her phone and fuck it if that blooming thing inside her makes itself known at the sight.

"It doesn't matter." She decides. "In a month I'll be out of there and I just- I'll be gone."

Valerie pulls a case from the shelf, opens it and switches out the dvds.

Her sister sits back down under the covers, tweaks the settings for the film before pausing and poking Claire's hip with her toes.

"Why does that mean anything?"

" _Because_." She sighs. Locks her cellphone and throws it on the space between them. "The guy she'd been working with before, Reade?" Val nods, Claire caresses her son's hair. "He's coming back and Tasha _loves_ that guy."

"And?"

"And she won't have time for both of us."

"Alright, I've heard some pretty bad coverups for your fear of relationships but-"

"Fear of-"

"That's gotta be the worst one yet. Does Tasha have a thing with what's-his-face?"

"Reade. I don't think so."

"Then you're making up excuses not to try." Valerie pulls her hair in a bun and presses play. Claire closes her eyes and listens to Disney's intro song.

There's something in her that is growing for her partner and Claire wants to let it. Tasha is solid and a bit broken. Tasha has rare smiles too. Has sharp comebacks and a softness the woman so desperately tries to hide.

She wants to let the blooming feeling inside her chest grow and grow for her partner, but she's leaving and that should matter? Shouldn't it? Hadn't she decided that it did?

"I'm not afraid of relationships." She says as Pollyanna walks around on the screen.

"When was the last time you had one?"

Claire rolls her eyes. Tries to think.

"Bryan."

"You were with him for five seconds when Sam was two and you got your pre-mommy butt back."

"A relationship at last."

"Alright, when was the last time you were with someone for longer than three months?"

She thinks again.

"Scarlett."

"That was in the Academy, sis."

"Look, I'm not afraid of relationships, I just haven't found something worth keeping."

"And you never will if you keep turning the blind eye."

"Tasha is my partner and-"

"You like her."

"Maybe!" God, Valerie is relentless. "I don't even know if she likes me or if she won't freak out and run off when she meets Sammy."

"Set a play date, then! Make her choose something from the kids menu in Mcdonald's and if she picks the right thing you'll know." Val pauses the film again, gives Claire another pointed look. "Or, I don't know, _ask her_. But do something, 'cause you two seem good for each other and she's cute as hell."

Claire groans, pinches the bridge of her nose before letting her arm fall atop her sister's ankle. She gets a soft kick in return before the little girl on their TV starts talking again.

There's something growing and taking over her chest with Tasha's name written all over it. Claire wants to let it develop freely. Maybe, she should.

* * *

 **1\. I love Chantaje way too much not to have them dance+flirt to it.**  
 **2\. this show is literally killing my baby heart and if they do what I think they'll to Tasha, Imma sue someone. (if you saw the promo for 2x21 you know what I'm talking about)**  
 **3\. chapter title from Maybe, by Kelly Clarkson**


	5. just an attempt to know

There's traffic. On a Sunday. At nine fucking A.M.

There's traffic on a Sunday morning, a period of time in which people should be asleep. Or making breakfast for their loved ones. Or _some other thing_ besides being in a car on the fucking street making her very close to being late.

The radio has the week's top ten playing and she rests her head against the seat on a red light, tries to settle the hell down as her fingers tap along to British Guy's new hit about liking someone's body.

She snorts on the thought, Reade's lack of patience to remember the _it_ artists' names blinking in her memory.

She misses him. A lot. And she can't go in there, in that _clinic_ , to visit him, carrying this load of expectation. It'll definitely be too much for him, because it is almost too much for _her_.

Tasha thinks about calling her partner. She could use some support. She could use cheerie words and a soft voice and a calm demeanor.

Then, just as the sign turns green, she frowns. Since when did she start thinking about her _partner_ and Claire was the one to appear on her mind, instead of Reade?

Shit.

Shit shit shit.

Nope, that can't happen.

It can't.

Reade is her best friend and he's her family and, also, her _real_ fucking partner.

Not Claire.

She can have something inside that leaps every time the blonde touches her, but she cannot see the woman as more than a space-filler.

She can't. Reade doesn't deserve it. He's a good guy and a reliable cop and it doesn't matter that Claire is good and reliable as well.

Having something buzzing every time _Pierce_ is around is already too much. Is already betrayal enough.

Tasha could really use some support, but she spends the rest of the car ride trying to get her mind straight.

The guy who meets her at the entrance has a bright smile that reminds her of Claire yet again. Her head shakes and she follows the man down a few hallways.

She sees _his_ head through the little window on the door. Her lips pull upwards on their own and when she steps into the room, he stands. He smiles at her and she hugs him and she's missed him so much. So so so much.

However, she's damaged goods. She can't just be happy. That's not how her mind works. She wanted it to. Truly did want to simply enjoy Reade's company. She can't. So she dwells on it as he introduces his therapist, the one who'll overlook the visit.

Tasha's glad beyond belief at seeing him, but she half wishes he was different. Different glow to his skin, different hair length, height, bags under his eyes.

She half wishes he was different because then his change would be clear. Not the broken person she recalls from the last time they'd been face to face. She wishes he was different, so, if he fell into that dark, twisty hole again, she'd have a shiny, healthy, _different_ version of him to use as standard, to compare to and know, precisely, how far gone he is.

"Thank you for coming." Reade says as the three of them sit down.

"Of course." Tasha leans forward, takes one of his hands in her own. The palm is warm. Dry. It'd become increasingly clammy as his PTSD had gotten worse. "How are you?"

He frowns, the remaining of his smile still there.

"I'm… better. Way better than I was when I got here."

Her chest is on fire. As ridiculous as that is. Her chest is on fire because it sounds like he means it and maybe she can't _just_ be happy, but she _can_ detect that feeling swimming around.

"That's amazing, Reade."

He sighs, dips his head a bit in self-awareness. The doctor starts talking about the steps he'd taken during the program and the one he's still got left.

"And what's that?"

"To apologize to those I did harm."

She starts protesting. He'd been in a bad place and no memory to what had gotten him there. She gets that. She doesn't want him to excuse himself for that. Still, he interrupts her.

"Just hear me out, okay? You may not want to, but I need it." Reade swallows, Tasha nods. He carries on. "You tried to help me. You _helped me_. More so than I probably deserved. And I took it for granted. Hell," He chuckles, pulls her hand closer. "I gave you crap for it. For being a good friend. And my head was so far up my ass that I didn't see how much that hurt you. I'm sorry, Tasha. I am."

She breathes. Blinks. Puts everything she's got left into believing him, into taking that in, into healing. She didn't need him to say sorry, but it was good to.

"You're my family." She shrugs, wipes errant tears away. "I'll always be there for you."

"I really love you, you know that?"

She laughs. Laughs because that phrase can very well become their mojo. She laughs and she sniffs a bit, smiles big and wide, almost like Claire.

"I love you too."

A beat of silence, a few questions about the food on the place and when he plans on talking to Weller.

"Anyways." Reade rolls his shoulders, soft moment gone, and his nonchalant smirk setting on his face. "How are you? How's life?"

" _How's life?_ " Tasha chuckles, an eyebrow almost hitting her hairline. He rolls his eyes at her and fuck it, she's missed that. "Life is good." Butterflies on her stomach, two months worth of memories flying around in her brain. "The same, almost."

"Any new boyfriend I gotta rough up when I come back?"

"No, no new boyfriend." She shifts in her chair, does not think of blonde hair and _Chantaje_ and golden, flowy dresses brushing against her denim-clad legs.

"Girlfriends?"

"Nope." She doesn't pop the 'p'. She doesn't look down. Of course not.

"You sure about that?" He squints his eyes, smirk growing.

"Yeah."

"Mm-hmm." He doesn't seem convinced. It doesn't surprise her. "Cats, then?"

Tasha pushes his shoulder, leans back against her seat and crosses her arms. Asshole.

"Alright, alright." He puts his hands up in surrender. "What about the team, how's your new partner?"

"You mean my _other_ partner." Tasha corrects. If she has to chastise herself, she'll damn well chastise him too. "She's great." A pause. A shift. "Really great. Awesome at field planning, actually. Patterson even lets her use _the_ desk to plot the formation."

"Wait, this girl gets to touch Patterson's baby without supervision?"

"I'm jealous, too."

"What's her name again?"

"Claire. Claire Pierce."

"First name basis?"

"She prefers it. Says Pierce is not taken that seriously because of Grey's Anatomy." Reade frowns. She chuckles, remembers how she'd had almost the same expression when Claire had explained it to her. "Yeah, she's one of _those_. But she's great, though. Really professional and quirky, too. Like, I wanted to kill her at the beginning 'cause she'd show up singing first thing in the morning. But she does drive Richard nuts with it, so it's worth it."

She doesn't notice how Reade's smirk turns into a knowing one. She doesn't notice how the shrink starts looking at her the same way.

"And you two work alright together?"

"Yeah, she's a very good agent, for her first team."

"A good friend, as well?"

Tasha's gaze is still on the table. The woman they are talking about luring behind her eyes.

"You not being there… it isn't easy. But she helps. A lot." She glances at him, then. She frowns when she realizes how humorous he looks. "What?"

"I don't think I've ever seen you so into someone before."

" _What?_ " Her voice goes three times thinner. Damn it. Why, for fuck's sake, can't she ever keep her mouth shut close to him? Why, for fuck's sake, can't she ever keep him at arms length?

"Oh, don't you even try to deny it. You were _this_ close to making heart eyes." He laughs.

"I don't do heart eyes."

"Apparently, for this girl, you do."

"Reade…"

"I'm just relieved it's not another one of those Gladiator-meets-Viking you're so fond of."

"Shut up."

"No, but really, is she cute?"

"I am not describing a coworker's beauty."

"Oh, so she's _beautiful._ "

"You-" She grabs the cup of water in front of her, unwraps a finger from it to point at him. "are a pain in the ass."

"Yeah, well, it's not like you're that different."

He changes subjects after that, but she can still feel the underlying teasing throughout the rest of their time.

As she's about to leave and he pulls her into another hug, he revisits the topic.

"An advice, though?"

"Oh my God-"

"If you're thinking about trying something with her, wait until it's closer to my time-out being done. You won't see her everyday, so there'll be a smaller chance of her getting tired of you."

Her mouth hangs open, she pushes him again.

 _trying something_

 _trying something with Claire_

That, that sounds almost as good as Reade coming back.

* * *

"Good morning."

She feels a touch on her back, a brush of something a few inches higher and Claire appears by her side right after.

"Morning." She smiles. Doesn't squirm away when the woman's fingers linger two more seconds against her. She can sorta do that now.

Reade is fine with her liking Claire.

So she's fine with her liking Claire.

"Did you have a good weekend?"

"Slept most of Saturday, watched the game. Saw Reade yesterday. You?"

Claire's eyes go wide. Big, blue, shocked eyes.

"What? Ho- How? Where?"

And then, then her _temporary_ partner delivers the blow. She lets her lips form this soft, sweet arch and Tasha wants to smack herself upside the head for practically melting on the spot.

"Family meeting. He doesn't really have anyone else."

"I- Tasha, that's so awesome." Fuck. Fuck Claire and her soft eyes and soft smile. "How is he? How did it go?"

An agent walks by, nods at them. The blonde frowns, looks down at her own hand, at the file she clutches.

"You know what? I gotta drop this by HR, but when I come back I want a full report, alright?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Ha, you wish."

Just like that, she's alone beside their table again, watching Claire's hips swing left and right as the woman walks down the hallway.

"For fuck's sake." Tasha whispers under her breath, shakes her head, takes a seat to try and actually get some paperwork done.

Reade was okay with her liking Claire. Reade didn't know the blonde. He wouldn't get to know her for a while, still.

Claire wears baby pink blouses. Claire does not wear any makeup to work and doesn't eat any sort of seafood.

Tasha prides herself in wearing somber tones, doing a damn perfect eyeliner and is addicted to sushi.

Claire is every bit as sweet as Tasha is sour.  
And, yet, the blonde makes her skin crawl at a brush against her back. The blonde shares a kind of warmth she hasn't felt in a very long time. The woman makes Tasha look _forward_ to mornings, because it's when Claire is at her most energized self.

Tasha sits down, opens a vanilla folder and starts signing her name.

"Alright, spill. How is he?"

It's twenty minutes and a third of the folders later when Claire half sits on Tasha's desk, the hip, the same one she'd seen swinging away, is two inches away from the back of her hand. She looks up, crooks an eyebrow and another blow hits.

Claire does the thing where she puts a string of hair behind her ear, showing off the pointy cartilage.

"You're sitting on my files."

The blonde reaches down, pulls said papers out of under her and shrugs.

"There. Now how is your best friend doing?"

"He's good." She smiles. Claire _beams_. Fuck fuck fuck. "I mean, he looks the same, but he seems real good. I think he's coming back right on schedule."

"You have no idea how glad I am to hear that."

"Why?"

"Cause-" Claire pauses, tilts her head just so. "Cause he's important to you."

She opens her mouth. Metaphorically picks her heart back from the ground. Reminds herself that Reade was just being an asshole about Claire getting sick of her. Reminds herself that there is no other reason why the woman would be _glad_ that he's coming back on time.

"Hey, Tweedledee and Tweedledum."

They turn their heads to see Kurt poking his through his office door.

He laughs at them, Tasha's eyebrow twitches again.

"Claire, can I talk to you for a sec?"

"Yeah." The blonde nods, stands up, turns to her one last time. "Does he make jokes, now?"

Tasha wants to say she does not grin at that. But she does. She grins and she bounces her knees while she finishes her reports and waits for the pair to leave Weller's office.

When they do, it's because Patterson's got something.

The rest of the day is a rush to stop some chemicals from ending up on the wrong hands. Every moment they stop to breathe, she wants to ask what it was that Kurt talked to Claire about. Every down instant, she wants to _know_ what was discussed because it'd taken up most of the morning and it seemed serious.

She keeps her mouth shut and throws a fleeing suspect to the ground, instead.

At the end, Claire is the one who comes to her.

The blonde's got a split lip and a dislocated shoulder, but the look she gives Tasha is what really worries her.

"Can we- can we talk?"

She frowns, nods, closes her fingers in a fist to keep them from running over the woman's bruised collarbone.

"What's up?"

"When Kurt called me earlier," Claire frowns, goes on looking Tasha in the eye. "He wanted to tell me the department got a funding bump for the drop in casualties."

"That's nice."

She crosses her arms. The question she doesn't ask is clear. Why did he tell Claire about it?

"He wants to use it to-" The blonde gives her a weak smile, glimpses down before meeting her gaze again. "To hire me. Permanently."

Tasha breathes.

Reade had been kidding when he said Claire would get tired of her. He'd been joking.

Of course he was.

He'd just been the asshole he always was.

He'd been kidding.

"I wanted to see how you felt about that before I said anything."

Claire's looking at her. Claire's staring, really. And standing close. And Tasha has to keep her hands glued to her sides not to run her fingertips across the woman's purple patch of skin.

"Tasha?"

Claire steps up. Tasha steps back.

"Do you want me to stay?"

Reade had been kidding.

He had to be.

* * *

 **I'm sorry this is so slow burn? I never meant it to be, but Tasha and Claire are very stubborn. Anyways, let me know your thoughts and chapter title is from Mercury, by Sleeping at Last (yes, I listen to a lot of their stuff).**


	6. I kept all my senses

**guys! I'm alive! and so is this fic!**  
 **(sorry for the delay in updating, I was sure I'd be able to finish this chapter real fast buy my brain kinda went "bitch you thought")**

* * *

The pounding behind her left eye is driving her nuts. She's got three more pages to read through and at least seven hours before she can lie down. So the headache she's currently experiencing is torture.

Claire sighs, massages her temples for a few seconds. Great day to run out of aspirin. Great day to have Zapata yelling at someone through the phone.

"Can you lower your voice?" She lifts her head, eyes meeting her partner's instantly and the brunette sends her a glare.

"I'm trying to work." Zapata snaps before turning back to the phone. "No, I wasn't talking to you but that'd be a good tip for you too. Y'know, working!"

"Well, so am I. And it's pretty damn hard with you yelling over there."

Tasha ignores her, yells some more at the person on the other end of the line before getting the info she wanted and slamming the handset into the holder.

The woman leaves the common area in a second, not a glance towards Claire.

She breathes. Closes her eyes and calms herself down. It's not worth it.

Lunch break comes an hour later, but Tasha does not.

It'd been the same the day before, so Claire is prepared this time. She makes her way into the meeting room, the place empty by the lack of, well, any actual meetings.

Val had made pot roast and she waits for the microwave to heat it up.

Claire sits down with her feet propped up on an empty chair. She makes a mental note to teach her sister how to properly use spices.

The meat is good and soft, but her arm practically reaches for the water bottle on its own.

She watches Nas and Kurt interacting inside the man's office. The slow dance of hidden longing. Thousands of steps forwards and a thousand more backwards. Small breaths, small touches, small smiles. Big laughs and big eyes.

It's still so clear on her chest, how she'd been moving to that same music for so long. It's still so clear on her mind, Tasha walking away from it.

The duo she's stealing glimpses from leave the glass room they were confined in and start moving towards the one she's in.

"Hi." Nas grins at her. Claire squints, not knowing the woman like she thought she knew Tasha, but knowing her enough not to trust in unmeasured happiness.

"Hi."

"Sweetie, are you alone?"

" _Sweetie?"_ The word is wrong leaving her lips and she bets Nas felt worst saying it first. "Since when do you say that?"

"I-" The brunette stops, lets a breath go and changes her body language. Goes from soft, wondering and _weird_ to controlled, professional and _herself._ "I don't."

They chuckle. Kurt pulls out a chair for Nas to sit before doing the same. Claire wants to roll her eyes at the gallantry of it all.

"What's up?" She asks, finishing her potatoes and thinking about giving up on the pot roast.

"Nothing." Weller shrugs.

"Oh, yeah? How did your date go last night, then?" Claire arches an eyebrow. They gulp. Kurt relax against the back of the armchair.

"You're good." Her boss sighs, taps a finger against the table for a few seconds.

"I know."

"Look, we're just trying to get a feel of what the team is going to be like from now on. You and Zapata got along great, you got the job offer and you two started snapping at each other."

"And we still have no idea if you're staying or not." Kurt nods, Claire can't take any more of Valerie's cooking.

She can still remember quite clearly how Tasha had walked away. How Tasha had left her standing there, no direct answer for her question.

She can still remember quite clearly, how Tasha had walked away and she'd felt like that meant a _no_. Like that meant the woman wanted her gone.

"Zapata and I are fine. And I'm still thinking about the offer. I still got a week, right?"

"Yeah, you do. But Claire, you're eating alone. And you're standing as far away from Zapata as you can. You know how to watch people, but so do I." Kurt leans forward, elbows on the table and damn him for having worried eyes and making her want to stay. "There's something off about you two and we're gonna figure it out, sooner or later."

"She doesn't want me here." Claire sighs, putting the lid on her tupperware and trying to put a lid on her feelings too. She had something blooming for Tasha and now, she needs to stop it from growing. "We talked, she made that point pretty clear. It's fine but it does give me some reconsideration to do when it comes to taking the job."

"Of course she wants you to- did you fight or something? You worked great together and-" Nas seems shocked. Claire wishes she could feel the same. Shock. Not anger, not confusion, not grief.

"No, we didn't fight. Guys, I was always supposed to leave. That was always the deal. I don't blame her for sticking to it."

She does. She does blame Tasha for it. She does blame Tasha for making her think they were headed down this thrilling, emotional path. She does blame Tasha for flirting with her and allowing her to flirt back.

"Something must have happened. Maybe Reade." Kurt frowns, shakes his head in a slow, distracted way. "I'll talk to her."

"No." She stands. Closes her eyes when it's too much too fast for her headache. "I'm fine. She's fine. Even if I stay, I won't be her partner anymore, so it doesn't matter. I'll have your answer by Friday."

Claire leaves. Her stomach lying somewhere around that meeting room. She likes this team. Likes their protectiveness and even likes the messed up love triangle between Weller, Nas and Jane. She likes this team, but she has no idea if she'll be able to be a part of it.

°°•°°

Patterson sighs for the fourth time. Tasha finishes her second glass of scotch.

"What?" She asks, motioning the waiter for a refill.

"What what?"

"What is making you sigh out loud so much?"

"Nothing."

"Spill it."

"It's just sad to see so many possibilities thrown away."

She groans, gulps half of her third glass before turning to the woman.

"Whatcha talking about?"

"You and Claire."

Tasha stops breathing for a second. Patterson keeps talking.

"You guys had so much potential. And she's not a mole and she's like us, so she's not gonna end up dead out of nowhere. So it's sad to see you waste that."

"Pat-"

"Oh don't go pitying me or anything, I'm serious here. You are pushing her away and I really thought she was it for you. Like- like the Brad to your Angelia."

"They split up." She shakes her head, takes a few peanuts from the plate between them.

"Really?"

"Yeah, last year."

"The Michelle to your Barack, then."

"Okay, stop." How does she explain it? How can she make someone else understand that Claire and her just wouldn't last? "Pat, I appreciate you looking out for my romantic life and all, but Claire and I never had anything."

"Exactly." Patterson slaps her hand against the bar, drawing curious eyes to them and _alrighty_ , the blonde is definitely drunk. "You never got to _be_ and that is awful. For you and for Jared too, 'cause now he owes Melissa."

"Hold up, what?"

"The office pool."

" _Office pool._ "

"About when you'd get into each other's pants. Jared said that by the end of Claire's contract you'd be together and Melissa said you'd chicken out and-"

"Got it."

She's going to have to kick someone's ass.

"But forget about them, we're talking about _you_. And Claire."

"There's nothing to talk about."

"Why are you running from it, little Tash?" Patterson gets incredibly close and this is miles and miles away from what she had in mind when she thought about drinks after work.

Tomorrow, she'll blame it on the alcohol.

Her lab friend may be wasted, but Tasha is too. She just handles her booze in a different way. She gets honest. And mouthy. So, tomorrow, she'll blame it on the alcohol. Still, she starts talking.

"Because I'm not good at relationships. Never was. So why bother."

"That's a crappy reason." The blonde frowns at her.

"Well, it's _my_ reason, so…" Tasha takes another sip from her glass and focuses on the amber liquid.

"So you're hurting two people just because you're scared?"

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Tasha misses Pierce. And hates that Patterson is right. But what the hell can she do, anyway? She's good at being angry and she's good at not trusting herself. She is _not_ good at relationships. That's something she has to accept. That's something she has to set in her heart, despite it reaching for Claire at every chance it gets.

°°•°°

"Valerie, do not touch my stove."

"I just wanna make lasagna for dinner."

"Is it a precooked lasagna?"

"No."

"So you're not making it, the end."

"I need to go back to my own place."

"You didn't know how to cook there, either."

"Screw you."

"Love you too, gotta go, see you tonight."

Her mom pushed her visit to the other Friday. Claire had thought it'd been a blessing, but now that the day has arrived, she just feels sick.

As she walks into the floor, she sees the team around the main tv. Nas on the screen, hands behind her back, kneeling. One eye bruised.

She runs.

"Where the hell have you been? I told Zapata to message you half an hour ago." Weller snaps. She shakes her head, tries to think of something to say. Her mind is still trying to process the scene.

"I went to the store to pick up some stuff- How- When-" Claire looks at her partner, the brunette frowning at the floor. "Seriously, Tasha?"

"I forgot, sorry. Can we get back to Kamal now?"

There is more she wants to say. There is more she wants to scream. Her hurting chest is not important, not at this moment.

"She was taken ten minutes after she left for lunch. The video went up while they were still on the van." Patterson's voice is low, fingers clutching her tablet to her chest. "There are absolutely no tells on her location."

Claire forces herself to do a double take on the screen. She thinks she may barf before this whole thing is over.

Dark, bare wall. A window at the upper corner, a fake background behind it with minimal movement.

"Have you checked the areas with low wind?" She tries. It's such a long shot. It's so useless. Patterson runs a search anyway and they go from a 150 miles radius to 35 different spots, around 2 miles each, across the state.

"Still no hits on the plumbing?" Jane stands beside Kurt and, still, there's a good distance between the two.

There's a pipe on the corner of the wall giving out to a tap. The handle is distinct, probably from the beginning of the twentieth century.

"It seems to be a common faucet used in the early 1900's." Patterson pulls up a search window.

"Which of those areas have buildings made in that time?"

They go from 35 to 12 spots. Still too many.

"Have they asked for anything?" Claire closes her arms around her stomach, trying to keep her sandwich down.

Nas was the reason she'd told Weller she was staying.

The NSA agent had started having lunch with her. No words needed. Nas had just started showing up at the meeting room with a tupperware of her own.

Claire admired her. The woman was sharp and observed more than she spoke.

"No." Kurt answers, jaw tight. "Besides the occasional punching, they haven't done much."

Claire wants to stay, and even though Nas will leave once Shepherd is taken down, the friendship gives her hope. Maybe she doesn't need Tasha, maybe she can find support elsewhere. Maybe things don't have to be so weird all the time.

She said she was staying and now this shit.

God, she misses her detective days.

A suspect gets into the frame. Her heart starts beating faster.

Nas looks the man head on. He laughs, delivers a blow to her abdomen and the woman doubles over.

"There's a leaf on his shoe." Tasha speaks. All of Claire's despair turns into anger. She could've been here sooner. She could've seen something else that would help. Had her partner not been an asshole, had Zapata not been selfish, had Zapata not despised her enough not to talk to her even for that.

Patterson takes a frame from the live feed, opens into a side-screen and zooms into the man's foot.

"It looks like an American Chestnut." The blonde tech frowns and they all take a glimpse at the main screen when there's movement and a stuffed groan. Nas is laying on her side, now.

Claire steps closer to Kurt because his hands are closed into fists and his breathing is erratic. She doesn't think anyone else knows (for sure) about his and Nas' relationship recent development.

He spares her a look. His shoulders decent the tiniest bit

"But they were killed off last century by a disease of some sort." She shakes her head, her grandpa's love for botany finally coming into use.

"Some survived in the wild. They are crazy rare or something."

"That means we can track it, right?" Jane asks.

"Probably." Patterson leans forward, fingers tapping away.

A few seconds, a few more glimpses at Nas.

Claire will definitely throw up before this is over.

"Damn it." Tasha mumbles.

The search engine comes back with two possible locations left.

Claire looks harder into the feed, swallows the bile down while paying attention.

( _"Okay, so coffee or tea?"_

" _Coffee. I grew up in England but I've been here long enough." Nas laughs, takes a sip from her cup for good measure._

" _You're a disappointment."_

" _Thanks, I bet your mom has told you the same."_

 _Her mouth falls open, her hand covers her heart theatrically._

" _Mean, Kamal. Mean."_

 _Nas winks at her. It's her turn to laugh.)_

"The wind is picking up." She points, sees how the fake background laps faster and faster.

They get their spot and Weller wants to go right away and they can't. They don't know why these guys have taken the woman, they don't know how many reinforcements there might be. They know nothing. A wrong move, a step too soon and that's it. Nas is as good as dead.

She tells him that.

He screams at her.

She doesn't flinch.

"So go on, break down the door blindfolded. Do you want to arrange for her funeral while you're at it? Be my guest."

He breathes, looks at her as if she's the devil itself. But he backs off.

"There's a phone in the place." Patterson states, files filling the tv.

"You think making contact is safer? They will get desperate the same way and we won't be close enough to help." Weller is still letting his anger show. They are all too used to it.

"So we set up a team, get in formation and then call. Classic hostage protocol. We just can't barge in there without some sort of a plan."

"Make one, then. You've got ten minutes. Not a second more."

Kurt walks away, towards the armory, Jane hot on his heels.

She exchanges looks with Patterson and they get to work.

°°•°°

When one of their own is taken, it is always a mess. Stakes run high, patience runs low. It doesn't excuse what she's done, though.

She should've called. Tasha knows it. She knows it and she feels like an asshole for it, too.

Weller had told her to let Claire know. Tasha had pulled her phone out, found Pierce's number and stopped. She'd stopped because she'd dialed that number the night they went out to dance. She'd stopped and thought about Claire and Chantaje and crop tops and gold, flowy dresses.

Jane had said something interesting, then and she'd pulled her phone away the same way she'd pulled it out.

The next thing she knows, Kurt is yelling at Claire and her partner has sad, confused eyes.

She should have made that phone call.

"Pierce, you're leading the team." Weller sets his sniper on his shoulder, heads for the elevator.

"What? No."

If it'd been before, she would have laughed at the blonde's trembling hands. Now, she keeps her mouth shut.

"Yes. It's your plan, you're doing it."

"Yeah, it's also Nas with her hands tied. I'm not taking any risks here."

"Look, you'll be doing this a lot more down the road with us. You might as well get used to it."

"Kurt-"

"And you're right, it _is_ Nas over there, and unless you want to waste more time arguing with me, you should just accept your orders."

The air buzzes. The elevator hums.

"Yes, sir."

Tasha wants to take Claire's shaking fingers. She wants to crack a joke about the tension. She wants not to be caught up on the fact that Weller said _with us_ , like Pierce is staying. Like no matter what, the blonde is not moving.

When the negotiation starts, there are probably five agents for each exit of the building. Claire is positioned far away from her and she can't decide if that was on purpose.

Someone opens the door she's guarding, so they announce themselves. The woman (tall, brunette, a piercing on the left brow) opens fire and they retaliate. As the shooter falls back inside, her foot keeps the opening ajar.

"There's a way in." Tasha informs through the intercon.

"They are on alert, now, we can't move." Claire's voice is sharp. She is still trying to decide if that's on purpose.

"No one's showed up to lock this up, we may not get another try at this."

"Zapata, we are not going in before we have a handle on what they want."

"We've waited long enough."

She knows she shouldn't do it, she knows she should stick to her spot and wait, but something in her says that she can do this, that it's dangerous but she can do it.

"Zapata, do not move."

Claire raises her voice. Tasha makes a run for the door.

"Sorry." She whispers, before entering the building.

°°•°°

"Willis, Tavarez, go after her, make sure she doesn't get herself or Nas killed. _Now._ "

Claire takes air in through her nose and lets it go through her mouth. She's gotta get her heartbeat down.

Tasha's unpredictable, but this, _this_ is some next level shit. This is crazy and inconsequent and dear Lord, her food climbs all the way back to her throat.

Kurt is the one with the kidnapper on the phone, but she's in charge. And Claire feels all the pressure multiplying in her shoulders.

Two minutes later, Weller lets his expression drop, takes the speaker away from his face. There are gunshots heard.

She sends half of each door-team into the place.

They get reports, but not from Zapata and not from the agents Claire told to follow.

"Oh God." She covers the microphone, rolls her shoulder before pulling the trigger and taking out a suspect by the second floor's window.

The glass shattering disguises the metal door opening. The glass shattering disguises the two brunettes running out of the edifice.

"Oh God." Claire mumbles again, her eyes falling on the women. "Oh God."

The shooting stops. Kurt runs to their teammates. Agents start filling out, a hand-cuffed suspect here and there.

It's over. Tasha is stupid and inconsequent and safe. Tasha is safe and so is Nas and Claire's stomach twists again.

Zapata is coming closer to her, trying to meet her eyes.

No, Claire is not doing this now. Not now.

She walks away. Behind a car. She doubles over and she vomits. Both her lunch and her feelings.

Later, Kurt approaches her. He's got this relieved smile on his face. He reminds her of Matthew. Of what her relationship with the guy was like before they had a kid together. Weller reminds her of safety and honesty and fuck, Tasha could have died.

She shakes her head before he says anything.

"It was a success." His tone is so different from the one he'd been using all afternoon. His tone is relaxed. The weight on her shoulders hasn't been lifted yet.

"Three wounded, one critical. How can you say that?"

"Because we hit our goal. And nowhere in your phrase the word dead appeared."

"What if it'd gone wrong? What if she'd died? What if they both had?"

"You're new at the Bureau, but not at the job. You know we can't get into the _what ifs."_

He tells her to go home, tells her the paperwork can wait.

She has the option to get a lift back to the HQ with a few extra agents or with Jane, Tasha and Willis. She chooses the people she knows.

Claire rides on the backseat. She wants to make sure her partner is okay, but she does not want to talk.

She spends five minutes inside her apartment before Valerie has her sitting on a chair, spilling the day's events.

Her throat gets tight once more. Her eyes pinching. She's not throwing up again. She's not crying, either.

"I'm gonna go pick Sam up and we're gonna wait for mom at the airport, alright?"

Val is amazing. Val is beautiful and amazing and Claire is so thankful for her baby sister.

"Can you manage the dinner?"

"I'm not broken, Valerie. Just shaken up."

"Great, then you can make the dessert, too, cause I forgot to buy it."

She snorts. Her smile doesn't fall until the redhead leaves.

Tasha could have died. Nas could have died. It'd could all have gone to shit. It all did go to shit.

Damn it.

Claire takes the sauce away from the flame, takes a whiff to make sure it's ready. Her doorbell rings.

Tasha could have died and Tasha is standing in her hallway.

"What are you doing here?" She doesn't stare into the big, brown eyes. She can't.

"Can we talk?"

"Not really a great time."

"Please?"

Claire looks up. Meets her partner's gaze for a second. Fuck fuck fuck.

"You've got five minutes."

It is weird to walk Tasha to her living room.

The woman stutters, seems to try and look for words.

"It was the right call."

"And your time's up."

She's not doing this. She isn't.

Tasha touches her wrist.

"It was the right call, but not my call to make."

"Yeah, it wasn't."

"I thought it would work. It was stupid, I know that. I just thought it would work and I've been doing this long enough to have a feel for these things."

"You can have a feel for it, but you cannot put other lives at risk."

"I wasn't."

"No? What about Nas'? What about the other agents'? I knew you were unpredictable, I never knew you were so selfish."

"Claire, I'm sorry." Tasha pleads. Tasha looks at her with _meaning_ behind her eyes and how can she do this? How can she come in and out of _feelings_ so easily?

"What _are_ you sorry for, Tasha? What is it, exactly? For pushing me away? For putting your life at risk without any reason to? Or for not wanting me to stay?"

Claire's voice gets louder. Her heart beats faster. She can't wipe the way Tasha's hair had framed her face when the woman had emerged from that building.

"I'm sorry." Her partner steps closer, pleading and how can she _do this?_

"I don't understand you. I _can't_ understand you."

"I was scared." Tasha blurs.

"Scared of what?"

They are so close. They are so close. Not closer than when they had danced together, but close nonetheless.

Tasha shakes her head, runs her eyes through Claire's face and the woman might as well had run a finger, for how clearly she feels it.

A second later, their lips are touching and Claire's hands are shaking, but they are shaking while pulling Tasha to her.

* * *

 **I miss blindspot and tHE FINALE KILLED ME TASHA ZAPATA IS SO SASSY I LOVE HER**  
 **chapter title from Wounded Animal, by Mary Lambert**  
 **don't forget to tell me yout thoughts, see ya in a while (a shorter while, hopefully)**


	7. when I found you, the doors were locked

**has this been a shorter gap? I'm not sure but HEY GUYS I'M HERE.**

 **chapter title from Overtime, by Seafret and I'm putting the credits here because I really, really, _really_ recommend you listen to it before reading this chapter.**

* * *

 _Jumped in the water_

 _Thinking you'd be safe_

 _I can't stand to watch you fall_

 _We don't plan for disaster_

 _We don't plan for earthquakes_

 _I wonder if you think at all_

* * *

Air. Kissing Claire is like coming up for air. Like taking a good, deep inhale after being under water long enough that you think you're a step away from drowning.

The woman's stomach flushed against hers, their thighs brushing, Tasha's fingers on the blonde hair.

Kissing Claire is a needed inhale.

She pulls away an inch. Because it feels like coming up for air, but only metaphorically. Her lungs are actually screaming for oxygen. For a pause. The woman doesn't allow her, though. Gives her two seconds before chasing her lips down again.

Tasha feels something on her lower back. Something warm and soft and exciting. Claire's hand. Claire's hand has made its way under her blouse and she wants it all over her skin. She wants warmth and softness in every cell she can possibly expose.

She uses her free palm to guide the touch upwards.

That's something she'll regret, later on.

Claire snaps away. All the warmth and softness disappearing at once.

Tasha opens her eyes. Looks at the woman.

Lips pinker than usual, hair a little messier.

Shit, she doesn't want to stop seeing Claire like that ever again.

"I-"

A whisper, a frown, a step back.

"I don't _know_ how to handle things very well." Tasha watches as the blonde walks to a mirror on the hallway, watches as their eyes meet on the glass for a second before Claire starts tucking her clothes back in place, brushing her messy (lovely) hair into submission.

"Yeah."

Hoarse voice. Tentative.

"But I'm sorry about today."

"Yeah." Claire walks to her kitchen. Tasha follows. "I'm just glad we didn't suffer any losses."

"Tavarez?"

"Got out of surgery. He's bad, but he's safe."

The woman checks the oven, pokes a fork into what appears to be meat balls.

Tasha wants to breathe again. She wants to kiss Claire again.

She knows they need to talk, first.

"Anyone coming over?" She remembers the time frame, notices the extra food and she knows Claire's pattern, knows the woman hates waste.

"My grandparents and my mom."

"I thought that was last week?"

"I guess you miss out on a lot of things when you stop talking to someone."

Tasha feels the sting intended. She deserves it.

"I guess so, yeah." Hands shoved deep into her back pockets, heart flickering when she meets blue eyes again.

"Why, though? I don't get what happened."

She sighs.

 _("...there'll be a smaller chance of her getting tired of you.")_

"I thought we were headed one way but you up and left out of _nowhere_. So I tell myself it was all in my head and- and _then_ that thing in the living room just now." Claire gesticulates, a palm on her forehead, fingers pointing to the spot they'd been standing at moments earlier. "That messes everything up and I just. I don't get it, Tasha. What happened?"

blue eyes staring at her. Shaky lips, furrowed brows. She wants to run her fingers through the blonde locks and kiss the lips into stillness, she chokes on her words, instead.

"Everyone that decides to stick around, gets tired, eventually. My dad left. My mom didn't, but she lost herself in a bottle of whiskey, so it's kinda like she did. Suddenly you had the choice to stay and-"

Nope. She shakes her head. It's too much. Too much heat, too much longing. Claire has too much free space on her chest and she can't do this. She can't be this vulnerable when it comes to something that wouldn't last.

"It was easier." Tasha finishes.

"To be scared?" Claire chuckles. It's bitter. Tasha knows that sound. Grew up listening to it coming from her mom, her brother, abuela.

A nod. A look.

A forehead smoothing back to normal.

"The last person I was in a relationship with looked at me dead on and said my _son_ wasn't the son he wanted to have." Another chuckle. Claire steps closer. "Some people don't stick around for me either, Tasha but others do. And if we don't stick, if I don't stay like _that_ , it's because we didn't work, because something went sideways, not because you're _cursed_ or- or whatever it is you've convinced yourself you have going against you."

Her partner is mad. Tasha feels like coming up for air another time.

She's about to say something, she really is, she can sense it on the back of her throat, when the apartment door opens.

"We're here and we're hungry!" A male voice rings out. It reminds her of christmas and country music.

Someone walks into the kitchen. Not the man she was expecting, but a woman, a little taller than they are, body fuller and hair pinned in a tight bun.

"Clairie." The woman smiles, walks with open arms to the owner of the apartment. Only then does she notice the blonde has widened the space between _them_.

"Hi, mom."

Three silhouettes zip by the entrance of the room, mumbles about dropping suitcases before greeting everyone. It's not until she hears her name that she tunes back into herself.

"Agent Zapata, nice to meet you." The woman extends a hand in her direction, Tasha stares for a moment before taking it.

"Nice to meet you too, ma'am."

The silence is loaded and the older blonde looks between them before focusing on her daughter and

"What, did you think I wouldn't look into who's supposed to have your back?"

"Mother."

"It's not like I haven't checked Rousller and Palov too. I just wanna make sure everything is in order."

"I did mention my mom is military, right?" Claire looks resentful, Claire's mom seems tired of the subject.

"Either way, it's nice of you to join us for the family dinner."

"No, actually. She's not here for that." Her partner shakes her head repeatedly. Well, at least one thing is clear on this mess. "We were finishing up some work things, but Tasha was just about to go."

"That's a pitty. Claire's a great cook. God knows she's better than me."

She chuckles along to the woman. Says her goodbyes and, when it comes to it, Valerie is the one who shows her out.

"You are an idiot." The redhead whispers. "And I don't like seeing my sister crying. So pull it together."

Closed door, a click of the lock.

Yeah, Valerie truly is usually right.

She takes one look at Weller through the peephole and decides she's too drunk to tell him to leave.

She pours him some scotch, he declines it and she arches an eyebrow at that. He takes the glass from her hand. Tasha props herself up on the kitchen stool again, the view of the city better from that spot.

"How are you?" Kurt leans against the wall, eyes on her. He's so much like Henry. Protective and caring and, also, an asshole.

"How's Nas?" She watches as he shifts, as the comment has the desired effect.

"She's sore, but fine." He defies her, just like Henry.

Tasha looks back out her window and tries to pay attention to the sight. To the lights and the deep blue, to buildings outlining for miles and the airplanes moving. She tries to pay attention to that instead of thinking about Claire. Instead of thinking that maybe Weller could help, that maybe his messy love life could be of some use.

Tasha is damaged goods, so it doesn't matter how much she tries, something always leaks.

"How can you trust her?" Her cup is empty. Maybe she needs a refill. Maybe she needs to stop feeding into her addictions. "After everything? After Omaha and the bug? How is it worth it?"

Maybe he'll lie. Maybe he will shift again and play dumb.

Maybe she doesn't know him as well as she thought.

"She makes sense. With Sandstorm and Jane and Allie, there's not much I can find logic in. But she helps. Helps me find it." He shrugs. Not a shift, not nervousness and surprise, but acceptance.

"And when Sandstorm is over? When your life goes back to how it was before?"

What happens when the team is supposed to pick up where they left off? When tattoos and ecoterrorism are no longer their focus? What happens when there's nothing else left for Nas to do alongside them, what happens when there is no more frequent plot twists that Patterson will be enough? That Claire will be wasting her talent?

Kurt chuckles. Somber. Taking another sip from his drink.

"Life is not going back to how it was. We both know that. I'm not even sure I'll have a life left to guide, let alone put on reverse."

He thinks he might die on this war they are fighting. Maybe he's right. That doesn't help, though.

"So she's worth it because it might be your last shot?"

"She's worth it because she's a future. And because of everything else that makes a relationship worth it."

"Please don't go all rom-com on me."

It's a detour. An obvious detour. He takes it. Kind of.

"Did you really go into that building alone thinking you'd get out alive?"

"They were clearly morons. The door was opened for two minutes and no one was there to close it.."

"No, they weren't. They were good. And had big guns." Kurt finishes the remaining of his drink with a swing, places the glass on the counter. "The only reason you didn't get a bullet on your ass was 'cause you had a very competent team at your back. If anyone had been half as good or hesitated for half a second, you'd probably be dead. Nas too."

"That's what you came here to do, then. Reprimand me."

"No, I came to see why you acted like a jackass today." He pushes himself off the wall, sits beside her.

Apparently, Valerie is not the only one who thinks she's an idiot. Maybe that means something.

"I was doing my job."

"No, that was Acadamy training shit. You don't do that. You wouldn't be on the team if you did."

"Kurt-"

"You're a good agent with a bad history. That's not new." There it is, the assholeness she can compare to Henry's. The putting the finger where it hurt twisting it. "But you stood out because of your judgment on cases. Because you were clear headed. Today? Today wasn't you." Weller puts a hand on her shoulder, not prone to touching, but known for bending the rules. "She makes sense, Tasha. Nas makes sense to me and I have no clue what's gotten into you to think Claire doesn't."

 _Claire makes sense._

 _Claire isn't leaving and Claire had been flush against her and claire makes sense._

Claire makes sense.

°°•°°

"The spaghetti is delicious, honey." Nana smiles, places a hand atop Claire's.

"It really is." Pops winks.

Her stomach is behaving, now. No more twists, no more nausea. Her grandparents actually bring a warm feel to it. A _good_ warm feel.

"Thank you."

The sound of silverware meeting dishes fills the atmosphere again. She eats, keeps an eye on Sam, making sure he's taking slow bites.

"Val said something at work shook you up. Are you okay?" Mom sips her wine. Claire clutches her fork a bit tighter.

"Yeah." Another glance at her son, to make sure he's distracted (he isn't), to buy herself some time to measure her words. "A friend of mine got into trouble, but she's alright."

"Not Natasha, I hope?"

Mom tilts her head slightly, looks at her with soft, calculating eyes. Claire wishes she didn't recognize herself in that gaze.

"Tasha." She corrects, putting more pasta into her plate. She's going to hit the gym pretty hard, tomorrow. "And no. Thanks for asking, though."

"Who is Tasha, again?" Her grandfather tries to break their staring contest, always seems to know when tension is rising underneath the surface.

"She's my partner at the Bureau, Pops. The woman that was here when you guys arrived?"

"Oh, she seemed nice."

"Must've been the lighting." Valerie mumbles, a piece of meat halfway to her mouth. Claire quicks her sister's ankle and thanks God that her grandparents aren't old, but are old enough to not have great hearing.

"She's very nice, once you get to know her."

"Mamma?"

Eyes turn to the boy, _her_ boy, her little bubble of innocence and light.

"Yes?"

"I'm done. Can I go play?"

"In the living room." She runs her fingers through his hair, watches as he skips away. Nana has adoring eyes. So do Val and Mom. Pops has his best poker face on, but she knows better. He'd never been a fan of kids leaving the table before the adults were finished.

Oh, well. It's her home, so it's her call.

"How are things with our warriors, Hannah?" Her grandma turns their attention to her mom. Claire shares a contained smile with Valerie.

The conversation evolves around the war and implications in other parts of the world. Dinner ends. Mother shoots her a question or two about her work, about her _partner_ , more specifically. She answers all of them.

She'd figured out long ago that it is easier, and safer, to tell her mom lighter versions of the truth, than to of beat around the bush.

Later, she cleans up the table with Valerie.

"So…" Her sister piles up the plates, keeping a low tone so no one can eavesdrop. "What happened?"

"What are you talking about?"

"About Global Warming, of course." Val stares at her. Claire sighs, takes the rest of cups and motions to the kitchen. She tries not to see her partner standing next to the microwave, a few hours earlier.

"You probably know more about it than I do."

"Don't start. I'm talking about Tasha and you know it."

She breathes. Pulls open the dishwasher.

"She came over, we fought and then sort of kissed." Claire loads up the cups, the silverware. "Can you pass me the plates?"

There's a moment of delay, so she looks back at her sister. The redhead's mouth hangs open.

"You _kissed?_ "

Valerie sets the plates she'd asked for on the counter and Claire groans.

"We did." She takes the dishes, scraps the leftovers into the trash before setting them on the rack to be washed. "You guys showed up a little while after that."

"What does it mean?" Val crosses her arms, seems as confused as Tasha.

"That you can never say I'm scared of relationships ever again."

It's after her sister takes their grandparents to her own apartment, Sam is tucked in bed and Mom is asleep in her room that Claire calls Tasha.

She dials the number by hand instead of just clicking on the woman's name on her contact list. Two rings.

"Hello?"

"Hi."

She hears the breathing coming from the other end of the line.

"You called."

"I called." Claire fumbles with her sheets, curling her toes against the back of the couch. (She'd die before she let her mother crash on her sofa.)

"I'm really sorry."

A whisper. She closes her eyes. Thinks about talking to Tasha like this, in her pjs, ready to sleep. Thinks about not only hearing the breaths the woman takes, but feeling them, too. She thinks about Tasha's lips against hers and she forgives her partner.

"Okay."

Forgives her because Tasha had been honest and broken and the resentment the woman had towards her parents reminded Claire of similar things she held inside.

"How did the dinner go?"

She laughs. She can sense the smile on her partner's voice.

"As well as can be expected. It would have been tougher, had my grandparents not come."

"Your mom?"

"We've got issues."

"I get what you mean."

"She was never around long enough for me to know her, or for her to know me." Claire turns around, an eye on the corridor to make sure her mother isn't up, for whatever reason. "So now there are bits and pieces missing and everything feels…"

"Forced." Tasha agrees. God, she's missed this. The pouring thoughts out that don't necessarily make a lot of sense and having someone understand what she's saying even so, having someone complete her logic naturally, instantly. "Like the instincts that should be there are calculated, unnatural."

"Are we bad people? For resenting them?" Claire wonders about it, now and again. Sometimes she concludes that no, that she's not. Sometimes she'd rather push the subject away.

"Not worse than them, for not staying."

 _(_ _"Everyone that decides to stick around, gets tired, eventually.")_

"Tasha?"

"Yeah."

"I'm not leaving."

"I know."

"No, you don't. But I'm still not leaving. Not now."

Breaths. Claire thinks about feeling those against her skin.

"Okay."

The corners of her lips pull up. She's missed that too. Smiling at her partner. Smiling _about_ her partner.

She bites the inside of her cheek, makes a plan in her mind. A loose one. One that is not tactical and doesn't involve guns and vests and three yellow letters on their chests. It involves risk, though, but one of them has to be willing to get used to that.

"Hey."

"Uhm?"

"Sam's with his dad for the rest of the month. Wanna come by next weekend?"

"I do, yes." Only a second of hesitation. No trembling words.

Claire's missed that.

* * *

 **not as long as the previous chapter but shit gets sortted, so I guess that's good too? Anyways, tell me your thoughts and I'll see ya later maybe (probably) with something other than cursing to justify the rating.**


	8. a light at each end of this tunnel

**better late than never, I guess?**  
 **ps: song title from Breathe (2 AM) by Anna Nalick**

* * *

"This better be good."

Four fucking AM. She's going to kill Henry.

"I just admitted Elena to the hospital."

She opens her eyes. Takes a heavy breath.

Tasha had done everything she could to keep herself and her brother away from any sort of drugs while growing up. She'd been good at it up until it came to Elena.

Their next door neighbor. The girl with a decent dad and no mother. The girl with hazel eyes and plush lips.

She and her brother did not do drugs, but Henry was addicted to Elena and Elena was addicted to painkillers.

"Did she OD?"

"Like usual. She's in parole though, so that's nice."

"Fuck."

"Yeah, fuck."

"Is she gonna make it?"

"Probably."

"Are you going to wait to find out?"

"Probably."

"How is it you always seem to copycat me?"

She remembers Reade. Remembers not knowing what was left or right and not knowing when hate and desperate love had become such a perfect mixture.

"I came up short with the forgiving part."

"Elena always comes back to you."

"I don't want her to, not anymore." He pauses. She hears his jaw working, has learned to identify it, by now. He's overthinking. That must run in the family. "You know Jessica, from work?"

"The one who works directly in front of you? Yeah, I know her."

"She's single. And funny and kind and very good at Jeopardy. She likes me and I think I can like her too. She's also uncomplicated."

 _Claire makes sense._

Maybe Jessica does, as well.

"No one is uncomplicated."

"She's a kind of complicated I can deal with. The usual kind."

"Yeah, she probably is"

Tasha stands from her bed, taps barefoot to her kitchen. She doesn't get hangovers anymore, however, she does get dehydrated.

"Oh, if mom could see her handiwork."

"Dark."

"You always get screwed partnerships and I've been moping over a girl for the last fifteen years."

"Fuck you."

Her phone goes onto speaker while she drinks her water. It sounds as if he's stepped onto the street. She worries not waiting for Elena to wake up might not be the wisest idea, but she's tired, too. She's tired of seeing Henry kicked to the gutter.

"It's true, though."

"You don't get to talk about my partners any more I get to talk about your weak ass HR job."

He laughs. Truly laughs. That's why he always calls her. That's why she always picks up. She has superpowers, as they used to call it. She can make him let go of his self-indulgent guilt.

"Do you think she'd stop using if I got a job as a cop?" His tone is lighter and oh.

Oh.

Oh, no, he didn't.

He couldn't have.

Tasha doesn't reply. She puts her water cup in the sink and waits for his brain to catch up with his mouth.

"Fuck." Henry mumbles after ten very patient, very calculated seconds. (On her part). "Sorry."

"You're a jerk faced moron."

"Agreed."

That's why he calls. That's why she picks up. That's why she doesn't go off on him. It's a safe place, this thing they have between them. He can let go of his guilt and put his foot in his mouth and she stays neutral. He's the only one she knows how to be like that with.

"I'm sorry about Elena."

"It's not like I ever expected us to be the perfect suburban family. I just wanted us to make it."

"I swear to God, if you ever make me drive to a Suburb to see you, I'll hurt you."

"Do you honestly think I'm cut out to water fucking gardens?"

She smiles. Poor, good, broken-hearted Henry.

"I love you, okay?"

"Love you too, baby girl."

"Go to hell."

"Bye."

He hangs up just as suddenly as he'd called and she's left standing in her kitchen, feet in the cold tile and eyes still sticky from sleep. She sees Claire's name in her log and sighs, finger tapping on the counter.

Tasha's afraid she's not cut out for a lot of things, too, but she can probably mold herself, can't she?

°°•°°

Claire seldom stays in a bad mood for a whole day.

The last time around she was pregnant and Matt had been selfish and an idiot and insisted on being present in the delivery room.

The time before that had been the day she _got_ pregnant. A family get away with her mom, her sister, Nana and Pops.

Val had bailed at the last minute, of course, so the extra seat in the car and bed on the rented cottage had gone to Matthew.

Her mother had drunk a little too much a little too soon, and Claire was a little too sober. That was never a good mix. So they fought. And fought and fought.

By 9PM, Claire had dragged Matt to the local bar and filled a table with shots. She thinks Sam was conceived somewhere between 1 and 5 AM on the deserted (she hopes) ladies bathroom.

The other days she spent in a funk were when she was a teenager.

So Claire Pierce being in a bad mood for more than four hours straight is a rarity.

Then again, so is having a grandmother gift a toy gun to a four-year-old.

"Val, I'm not kidding. You need to get here, _now._ "

She is trying very hard to keep her voice leveled. She is trying very hard not to bolt out of her room and rip the freaking nerf gun out of Sam's hand.

"Pops is taking a shower, sis, it'll be at least another half an hour."

"I'm going to kick her out, Valerie."

"Would you tell me what she did?"

She hears adult footsteps and then a knock. Twenty minutes is a long time just to change out of PJ's and her mom knows it.

"You'll see it when you get here." Claire hangs up and stands slowly from her bed. She opens her door, makes sure to look her mother in the eyes. "Yes?"

"Everything okay?"

"What do you think?"

"I don't know. I'm trying to figure out what set you off."

The scream in her throat never hits the surface. Claire steps to her right, clearing the doorstep, motions for the woman in front of her to get inside.

"And I'm trying to understand how you thought giving Sammy a _gun_ was a good idea."

"It's a toy, Clairie." Her mom says it with an exasperated laugh in her lips and Claire really fucking hates that nickname. "One that has a lot to do with our family."

"I don't condone what our family does, mom! I never served. I think the war is a waste of lives. I specialized myself in tactics so less people were killed in the ops."

"That is your shame, don't put your prejudices on the boy."

"He's _my_ son." She was pissed before. She's livid, now. "I am the one raising him and I do not want him thinking that shooting people is a game."

"And you think he doesn't play cops and robbers with his friends?"

"He's four years old, so yes, I would like to think his teachers don't let him play that sort of thing."

A few seconds, her mother crosses her arms, shakes her head once, twice and there's a turmoil inside Claire's chest, spinning faster and faster because this woman is everything she wishes not to be and she's cruel and ignorant to others' feelings and wirings. Claire has no idea how she could be so undoubtedly opposite to the person who gave her life.

"Fine, I'll take it back, exchange it for something else."

"Unbelievable."

"Isn't that what you wanted?" Oh, Hannah is exasperated again. Claire's chest is on fire and she wishes she could unleash the flames.

"I wanted you to understand boundaries." She lets a breath go. Muffles the blaze. "I wanted you to be the slightest interested in how I'm trying to raise my son."

Her mother stares with icy eyes to counteract her fire. It doesn't work. Sam's call of her name does, however.

"Forget it, mom, I'll figure something out."

Claire goes to her boy, finds the dinosaur blankie he asks for and spreads it on the ground for him to put his figures on top.

Sam is sweet and caring and young. She prays to God for him not to lose that along the way. She prays to God for her mother's traits to not just be skipping a generation.

°°•°°

She does not realize how much she's missed being close to Claire until the blonde shows up Monday morning with a soft expression, two cups of coffee and mumbling a tune under her breath.

It's refreshing to be able to look at the woman and let her eyes stay there, to not have to rush away with a scowl.

"Good morning." Her partner smiles, handing Tasha her Macchiato.

"Morning." She responds, taking a gulp.

After Henry's call, she'd decided to go running, instead of sleeping for an extra hour. Her brain had woken up with the steady pace of her feet against the pavement and it had stayed that way for a while.

Now, however, Tasha can feel her eyelids getting heavier.

"How did it go with your mom?"

Claire groans, her forehead frowning and her jaw tightening.

"Let's just say I'm grateful the weekend is over."

"That bad, uhm?"

"You have no idea." The blonde walks past Tasha towards her desk and Claire is so close right then, closer than they used to be comfortable with and she feels like a teenager, with a skipping heartbeat and rush of blood to her cheeks. "How was yours?"

"Okay, I guess." She says, sitting at her own chair. "Babysat the neighbor's cat and went over to see Reade on Sunday."

Ah, Tasha has missed that as well. Claire's smile. Big and unprotected. Eye contact to a full extent.

"And how is he?"

"Anxious to get home." The sentence is said with a sigh, but she chuckles, can see Reade's perfectly dressed figure walking around the office again. "So am I, to be honest."

"He'll be back next week and you'll finally have your gang back together."

"It'll be complete, now." Tasha looks into the blue, blue, blue orbs and she knows her partner got what she means. "Don't let him hear you saying that, though, 'cause I'll never live that down."

"You're not all thorns, Zapata, accept that." Claire's smile turns into a smirk and fuck it, she wants to kiss that away.

"You do know that defamation is a crime, right?"

God, the laugh that comment inticess wakes her brain up more than any cup of coffee could. The laugh is rich and discrete and Jane shows up out of nowhere.

"Have you guys finally kissed and made up?"

Claire tucks her chin to her chest and makes a visible effort not to blush.

"Curious much?"

She arches a brow, wonders if Jane can be considered a close friend.

"Just relieved to see Tweedledee and Tweedledum together again."

"Two days ago you didn't remember how to tie your own shoes. Shut up." Claire is clearly over her embarrassment.

The tattooed woman rolls her eyes, shrugs and seems to remember what she was walking towards before interrupting them.

"Glad everything worked out." Jane brushes her hand on Tasha's shoulder and yeah, maybe the woman is a friend, indeed.

Her partner takes a file stacked at the joining of their tables, shakes her head like everyone is unbelievable.

"Seriously what is it with that nickname?"

"Let's never wear matching striped shirts, okay?"

Claire laughs again and Tasha hides her smile behind her coffee.

Her Wednesday starts in ice cold silence and ends in soft, beautiful calls of her name.

Jane has her jaw set all the way through a new case and its conclusion.

Granted, they work quickly, so the whole thing is done by noon, but it is still weird.

It is weird how Nas seems to make herself invisible around the office when she usually steps with certainty.

"I think she found out about them." Claire sighs while they wait in line for their food.

"She hadn't, already?"

Everyone had to know, by know. About the plot twist, about the power couple being the FBI and the NSA, instead of Sandstorm. Everyone had to know, because there had been sweet looks and simultaneous arrivals and urgent desperation when Nas had disappeared and they were all agents, for fuck's sake, they should be able to pick up those signs

"I don't know." Claire shrugs, puts her phone to her ear when it rings. "Hi, honey."

Tasha loves it when her partner smiles. Loves that wide, caring smile that always comes out when Sam's involved.

It tides them over for a while, Claire's son. The blonde tells her about how the boy's dad was supposed to be away for a month before his contract had fallen through and Sam had been over the moon to spend two weeks with the man.

It tides them over until they arrive at the office. They get to their floor and Tasha almost forgets about the drama between her teammates. Almost.

They step outside the elevator and everyone in the common area has their faces discreetly turned to Kurt's glass room.

He's inside. So is Jane. So is Nas.

The three of them stand in opposite corners and she knows Claire's theory was right.

Weller is red in the face, Nas has her arms crossed, is leaning against a table. Jane is crying.

Tasha walks towards her desk, Claire by her side and they look at each other, try to decide on what to do, if there's any excuse they can use to interfere. There are none.

So they sit down, unpack their lunches. Claire is unrolling her fork and Tasha is picking at the chips that fell out the container and into the bottom of the bag when a fire of words comes all of a sudden.

She snaps her head up in time to see Nas rushing out of Kurt's office. The man is still inside, palm on his face, covering his eyes and Jane is walking closer to him, extending a hand to touch his arm. He distances himself from the woman as if she's poison.

"Don't eat my croutons." Claire warns, standing and following Nas. She had not seen it coming, her partner's friendship with the NSA agent, the same way Jane had probably not seen herself losing Weller.

Tasha had defined Jane as her friend, too, so she should go to the woman, console her.

However, when she makes her way to the glass door, the taller brunette pushes her way out, sends her a dirty look, and maybe it's not the time, maybe Jane doesn't deal with her problems right off the bat. Tasha can relate.

Kurt is her friend too. Kurt is like Henry. Stubborn, caring, broken.

She locks herself inside his office, waits, blocking the way because he is like Henry and he needs to vent.

"What the fuck did she expect? After all the bullshit she pulled? Did she really think I'd wait around? That it would work out? That it wouldn't always be stained?"

Weller paces, Tasha stays silent.

"God damn it, I love her but I can't be with her. I can forgive her and work with her and keep loving her, but it's not the fucking same." He's mad, he sends a glare to the outside agents and she turns slightly to watch as things go back to their rushed places. "We're done. We had our chance. We blew it. And she's _mad_ ? And _hurt_ ? Well, too bad, we're not _it_ anymore. She's not the one, anymore."

"Was she ever the one, then?"

Kurt stops, looks at her.

"You don't believe in that true love shit."

"I believe you love her just as I believe you love Nas. And I believe they both have baggage. It's just a matter of whose past you're willing to make room for."

It's such a sad thing, to see something strong being brought down, so when Weller sits in his chair, lets his shoulders sag, it is almost like seeing the Empire State cracking.

"Love triangles are better in movies, aren't they?"

The man opens his eyes to glare at her and that is her cue.

Later, when their shifts are done, Claire gets into her car suddenly and Tasha pauses.

"I'm coming over." Simple and to the point.

So she drives, makes her way out of the parking lot and towards her building

"We didn't lose our chance, did we?" Her chest is on fire when she asks it. Because she can just see it, how she ends up just like Jane.

"No." Claire says, looking at Tasha and she does not dare to take her gaze away from the road. "We didn't."

°°•°°

She is very aware of how much she enjoys sex. Just as much as she's aware of how long it's been since she last slept with someone. Nina had been the last and that had been well over five months ago.

Claire's kept her head up, her mind leveled and, a lot of times, her hand down her pants. There had been too many things for her to handle to add anyone else into the mix. Her captain's suggestion, her job transfer, Sam, Valerie.

She's very aware of how long it's been since she had anyone pulling her shirt off of her. Having Tasha pressed into her on a Wednesday night is not how she imagined she'd get back in the game.

Well, she _had_ imagined it, once, but the thought had come and gone and she ignored the memory, the _impossibility._

She's still standing in the woman's hallway, leaning against a wall, her fingers framing the back of Tasha's neck.

Their first kiss had been needy, tempting and filled with unknown and unexplored feelings. This one is hot and messy and urging.

God, it's firm and seeking and making a liquid heat form and slide inside of her.

Tasha's got short fingernails, barely there at all, but Claire feels them prickling against the skin above her hips. That only makes the heat grow hotter and lower.

She guides her hands to the suit jacket the brunette wears, pushes her fingers between the garment and the blouse underneath. Tasha understands her point, pulls away to take off the thing and it gives them a moment to breathe.

How had it happened, exactly? How had they decided to go to the senior agent's apartment, how had desperation clung to their chests? She thinks it's got something to do with the showdown between Jane and Kurt. She thinks it's got something about not wanting to let their window shut, about not wanting to wait their opportunity out.

That is probably how, but Tasha comes back to her, a thirsty, soft look in her eyes and Claire knows this can last, she knows she's falling fast and out of reach for her partner and she knows it can and very likely _will_ break her in tiny pieces.

She kisses Tasha again, either way. Hot, blinding light behind her eyelids. Soft skin under her touch and Claire feels them turning, feels a slight pressure guiding her backwards, to the right.

Claire kisses Tasha and wraps her arms around the neck she'd framed. Their legs tangle, their training kicks in, they keep standing.

"Bed." A mumble. A warm palm sliding down her waist, her hips, stopping mid-thigh, squeezing a bit and she starts bending her knees, Tasha following her, lips still on hers and Claire feels the mattress underneath them, giving away slightly at their weight.

It's a slow unpeel for their work attire to be off and dear Lord, she looks up and there's brown hair and dark skin and dark underwear taking over her vision.

Their bodies are almost bare, touching, moving. Claire wants to see Tasha. Wants to see all her tones, all the scars their job has given her. She _wants_ Tasha, so she flips them around slowly, both of them looking, both pairs of palms brushing.

God, Tasha is beautiful and finally, finally, finally in the moment. Claire wants to see all of the woman underneath her and she can finally notice trust and openness. It shatters a little glass in her mind. The one she had been looking through when she imagined a life, a future with her and Sam and someone else. The one that always made anything related to Tasha being her _home_ seem like utopia.

They go at it slowly. She shakes and pants three times. So does her partner.

When it's done, the woman beside her pulls her into another kiss and that little fear tucked in beside her heart settles. She'll most likely be broken some time before the year is over, but there's Tasha against her and it feels too damn good to ruin it with probability.

* * *

 **thank you so much for your patience and for reading, I know I've been gone for a very long time. also, I'm really inclined to finishing this story soon and maybe turning it into a series. Let me know if you'd like that.**


	9. in the foreign state

**I'm offiially turning this into a series, so the next chapter will be this part's last.**

* * *

They should eat something, shouldn't they? She should offer something to eat. Tasha thinks she has some eggs in the fridge and a few chicken breasts leftover from the day before. She has wine, too. Cheap, opened wine, but wine nonetheless.

"The coffees will have to stop." Claire is exploring the apartment, her blouse closed by a few buttons and one of Tasha's sleeping shorts on.

"Uhm?" Her mind takes a moment to get back into focus.

"The coffees? Once we're reassigned, you'll have to start getting your own again."

The soft noise of feet against the floor comes to a halt and Tasha opens her eyes to see her partner standing by the bookcase, holding a picture frame.

She doesn't have many photos lying around, but Reade had given that one to her on a rare whim. She'd kept it because it had all the men in her life. It made her smirk every time she saw it and she needed those sorts of things.

"Is this your brother?" Claire asks, bright blue gaze finding Tasha's. She nods, extends her arm to ask for the object.

The blonde walks to her, sits on the space by her hips, back against her thighs. It seems like the more they do together, the freer she becomes.

She takes the frame, examines it despite knowing every trace.

"A barbecue a couple of years back. Patterson's dad used to have a house with a backyard, so we did it there." Tasha pulls herself upward, Claire's palm resting on her calf when she folds her legs in front of her. "I was kinda drunk and teased Henry too much. He carried me around like this for a few minutes before he threw his back out."

An idiot, that brother of hers.

He is standing sideways to the camera, showcasing Tasha on his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. She has her elbow on _Kurt's_ shoulder and a closed fist supporting her head up. Reade is at the other end, frowning and looking at them the way he does when he wants to make it clear how crazy he thinks they are.

"Matt did that to me every summer." Claire sighs, fingers touching Tasha's hair, now. "I pushed him into the pool after."

"He deserved it." She agrees, thinks about the food in the fridge yet again. "Are you hungry?"

"I'm always hungry." The blonde gives her a little grin, showcasing her dimples. Tasha ponders it for a second before leaning forward and pecking the smiling lips.

They should eat something and then they should sleep. They have work in the morning.

She scrambles some eggs, knows they'll have to pick something for breakfast on the way to the office and Claire sits on the counter, watching.

The way the woman leans forward gives Tasha a very good view, but she is not about to burn their dinner.

It turns out that the food is alright, after all, and the proud feeling in her chest is overwhelmed by anxiety when they finish. She hasn't had someone sleep in her bed for a very, very long time. she's had booty calls and half-assed relationships, but she hadn't brought it over to her place since she was in the NYPD.

Tasha lends Claire another t-shirt to sleep in, since the woman is way too spotless to show up at their floor with a crinkled, repeated blouse.

She lies down and faces the other way when Claire goes to change and the woman's always been more comfortable with exposure than Tasha, so when she feels a body pressing against hers from behind, it is no surprise to assess that the soft pink blouse was not going to be slept in, but neither was her t-shirt.

They shift and shift and shift and the hand on her belly is something she is craving again, has craved for a while.

Claire makes her come like that, chest to back, lips to ear, arm reaching around her hip.

"What did you say? About the coffee?" She asks, her breathing coming back to normal and her muscles relaxed.

A chuckle comes from behind her, a lazy, low sound. Claire is probably as tired as she is.

"We'll need to change our arrangement a little."

Tasha only hums her understanding, but that is right. They'll have to make some changes, like sleeping in each other's beds and learning to buy more grocery, and she's okay with that.

°°•°°

It should not be easy.

Their relationship should not be easy. They had struggled too much to even begin for it to just move smoothly from the get-go.

Claire is sure it should not be easy, just as she is sure Tasha knows how to cook as well as she does.

They spend Saturday together, but Reade leaves the clinic on Sunday and she can't ask Tasha not to go to him, not to see that through. Nas calls her around 2 PM. She takes the subway to the woman's place.

The decoration is muted, but there are little details, here and there, that showcase more than one resident.

Two plates on the dish rack, two different sized slippers under the center table.

The place is bright and lived-in.

Her friend is still hurting.

Claire notices that by the way Nas dresses in dark tones and sharp lines. She approaches the subject carefully, gathering conversation topics that can all be linked to Kurt, to tattoos, to heartbreak.

"Is guilt allowed in a relationship?" Nas asks it, probably catching Claire's tries to dig. They both rely on their analyzing skills for a living, after all. "I don't mean the kind you feel after picking an unnecessary fight, but the one where you know you don't deserve that happiness. Is that allowed? Is that ordinary?"

"You're not to blame for Weller and Jane's fallout. That happened on its own."

"If I wasn't there, they would've worked something out, you know that."

"No, I don't." Claire shifts, sips her tea. "Neither do you. You liked each other so you moved on together. People move on. People make choices and Kurt chose you."

Her phone beeps, signing a text and she just glances at it, making sure it's nothing important. Valerie telling her she's closed the deal on a flat.

"I can't sleep with him here." Nas looks into Claire's eyes for a second. "It'd be easier if he just left."

"Do you want him to go?"

"No."

"Then you should accept what you've got and work to keep it."

"Yeah, I should."

Claire gives her friend a tight smile and takes the quiet moment to reply to her sister.

"Are you nervous?" Nas leans forward, taking a biscuit from a small tray. "Reade is coming back tomorrow."

"Anxious, maybe. I did fill in for him." Claire knows being with Tasha should not be easy, she knows it won't be easy for long and she fears the man might add the complication factor.

"We didn't work together for long, but he seemed nice enough. Kurt considers him family."

"So does Tasha."

She understands the underlying comparison she drew a little too late. She understands it after Nas' eyebrow quirks for a split second. The woman had mentioned her significant other and Claire had said Tasha's name as if she meant the same.

Her stomach twists and twists and twists, she sees her tea starting to tremble a little on the mug.

"Zapata and Reade were very close before he left, like siblings, I think." Nas changes subjects. She knows it is not over yet, though.

"Yeah. I just hope he doesn't hate me."

"For being Zapata's partner or for loving her?"

She stops mid drink. They are too bold around each other, probably. Claire does not want to introduce Nas to Valerie. Ever.

"Both."

The brunette smirks, a lot more at ease at grilling Claire than at talking about Weller.

"He won't. Jane doesn't hate me and she liked Kurt _that way_. Reade and Tasha are platonic."

She nods. Her body is still worried.

Claire sleeps alone that night and it is probably for the best. She is very conscious being with Tasha should not be so easy and she doesn't know if she could handle having the woman near her without trying to find some excuse to run. She has the same turmoil in her stomach she did on her first day with the team.

°°•°°

"My ass is not getting late because you overslept, let's get a move on."

Tasha grabs her coat, pushes past him out the door and does not reply. Reade locks her apartment and she gulps down the muddy drink he'd brought her.

"This is awful."

"It's coffee." He raises an eyebrow and takes the travel cup when she pushes it into his hand.

"No, it ain't." Tasha multitasks. Checks her messages while she finishes closing her belt. Reade had practically dragged her out of bed. The alarm hadn't gone off. She makes sure to set it to the highest volume once she has both her hands free.

"You never complained before."

"You either forgot how to make it or I've gotten a better taste."

They walk through her building's entrance and the sun is dim, today.

"I'll have you know everyone loved my coffee at the center."

 _The center_. That's how they'll be calling the whole incident, then? The time Reade spent at the center.

It is fitting enough, she guesses. Just as the brightness of the sun and seeing Claire's late night text first thing on her screen.

"Any drug is better than none."

"Shut your trap." He laughs while he says it. They are like Henry and her: unprotected, rough, dark.

Reade drives. Tasha submerges on the familiarity she'd missed. His usual after shave mixed with the seat's letter scent and the lavender car-spray.

"How is she?"

"Who?"

"Claire. How is she around the office?"

"Chirpy and amicable, though I don't think she's close to anyone outside the main team."

"Neither are we. What else?"

"Well, she smiles and says good morning to people, which we don't do either, jackass." Tasha smiles. She knows he rolls his eyes. "And Claire watches a lot when we're exploring a case. At least, she talks less then. She's very good at tactics."

"You told me that."

"I know. It's different. You'll get it."

"You sure you're not overselling her just 'cause she's your girlfriend?"

"Girl-" She stops, takes in his smirk. Claire is not her girlfriend. Is she? The word girlfriend implies a relationship and they aren't there, yet. Are they? Ugh. Reade is frustrating. "Shut your trap."

His smirk gets bigger.

She doesn't want to stop every four steps for an agent to tap her friend on the back, to congratulate his return, but he's earned it, so she lets him enjoy his moment.

They get into the office two minutes before their work day officially begins. It takes her breath away, for a bit, not to see Claire's things on the table opposite to hers. Reade drops his box on the surface, though, and Tasha sees the blonde sitting right behind him.

She gets to see both her partners every time she looks up. That's good. That settles her.

The introducing should feel more special and critical than it actually does. It boils down to a shake of hands and a exchange of polite words.

 _Girlfriend_.

It rings in her mind over and over and over through the dead hours they spend doing paperwork.

She has to get up now and again to ask Claire a few things about their cases and Tasha leans over the woman as the information is displayed on the computer screen. She's wearing a citrusy perfume. It's completely different from Reade and also strangely comforting.

 _Girlfriend._

It rings over and over in her head as they go to lunch: her, Reade, Jane and Claire. It rings in her head when they wait in line, the blonde by her side chuckling behind her hand at a joke the man tells.

It rings when the wind picks up and Claire and her cross arms to walk through it back to the office. It rings when a place in her heart is warm and pulsing by their proximity.

Reade's first day is boring, but it gives her time to throw paper balls at him and think about being someone's _girlfriend._

As it nears seven P.M., her head is screaming, so she goes to the bathroom to stretch her legs and sigh out loud.

"What's wrong?"

Tasha finds a blue gaze through the mirror when she hears the door squeak opened and closed.

Oh, Claire. Claire who knows her, Claire who's worried and sweet and everything she is not.

"What are we?"

"How do you mean?" The blonde leans against the sink, making sure the spot is dry before doing so. They face opposite directions but have their heads turned enough to maintain eye contact.

"What is this _thing_ we have?"

Claire frowns, looks away for a second to think.

"I don't know."

"Is it a relationship?"

"A relationship usually implies exclusivity."

"Do you want something non-exclusive?"

The woman shakes her head negatively right away, however, she takes a moment to say no. "Do you?"

"Not really." Tasha turns around, her neck complaining over her position. "A relationship, then."

Claire doesn't nod instantly. It makes her throat squeeze tight. "I have Sam, you know I do. Are you ready for that?"

" _Now_?" She hadn't thought about it. About growing to know and love a little boy who is not her friend's or a random kid.

"When the time is right." Claire shrugs. "But it probably won't take too long. I'm with him ninety-nine percent of my free time and I don't want to give that up."

Tasha takes it in. Is it worth it? Will she be any good at it? Shit.

"Okay."

"Okay, you're ready for it?"

"Yeah." She nods. She can start easy, right? It's not like she has to be parent of the year or anything. It's just a boy. Someone related to someone she likes. Just a four-year old she'll add to her life, to her days.

"A relationship, then." Claire repeats. And delivers her famous final strike. That shiny, huge smile. Tasha does not kiss the woman, but it takes everything she has not to do so.

"You have a little something on your chin, right there. It looks like lip gloss." Reade comments, as she and the person she's supposed to call _girlfriend_ walk back to the common area together.

Her fingers touch her face instinctively before realizing what he means. She slaps him upside the head before sitting down and finishing her last file for the day.

°°•°°

Edgar Reade is a good guy. She half knew that already, even before meeting him. How could Tasha love someone so much and so desperately if that person wasn't inherently good?

Still, Claire thinks he's okay.

He's got good jokes and a sharpness that matches Zapata's.

He's softer, though. Softer than Tasha and softer than Weller. He doesn't hide it, doesn't put a hundred layers of shields over it. Claire likes that.

She thinks he's okay and isn't sure they would've become close if they weren't morally obliged to. He means a lot to Tasha and Claire is _with_ the woman.

They have to get along and they have to trust each other, at least a little bit.

She sees the way he stands with his feet apart, his shoulders straight. Always ready for action. She sees the way he slows down his steps so his partner can walk comfortably. Claire sees all of that and she knows he's good, even with his demons.

She likes him and she should trust him.

Claire thinks she does, up until they are in the field and something doesn't go as planned. As _she'd_ planned. As she'd predicted.

They had been chasing someone who had intel on Sandstorm, someone important, someone they needed alive. Someone who was captured by an enemy, by a man who didn't want her talking.

Claire thinks she trusts Reade up until they have one shot at getting their suspect and he probably has a better view than she does. Reade tells her so, waits for her to nod. She doesn't. She shoots, instead and the woman with their intel gets a bullet in her head by her captor.

"What the _fuck_ was that?"

Edgar Reade is inherently good, he has to be. He still stands several inches over her and she still has no idea why she didn't let him take the shot.

"I thought I'd get him." Claire lies. She doesn't know what she'd thought. She had reacted and they'd lost important information. They'd lost a life.

"You had a pillar in front of you. Did we get new, magic guns and no one told me about it? Because that's the only way you could've hit anything that wasn't fucking metal."

He's pissed. He should be. She's pissed at herself.

"Maybe we can get something from her kid."

"Before or after you tell him his mom is dead? And that it is your fault?"

"Hey, that's enough." Tasha interrupts, had stayed quiet until then.

"I'll head back over to her apartment. Maybe there's something hidden."

Claire walks away. Feels every step wavering and every muscle in her face pulling together to form a frown.

The dust from the construction sight gives the red blood more contrast, makes it vibrant and present and why the hell hadn't she let Reade take the shot?

Tasha should come looking for her once Claire arrives at the office again. Tasha doesn't. Tasha doesn't even see her.

Reade does, and Reade pulls her into a quiet corner. The softness he doesn't try to hide is there, bright and proud. He'd been pissed, but he's good, so his anger is gone.

"Why didn't you let me do it?"

"I thought I had a better-"

"Everyone says you're excellent at your job." He interrupts. She deserves that. "How the hell did you make a mistake like that?"

"I didn't have an aim with me, did I?"

"So? An aim wouldn't have made that pillar disappear."

"I wanted to do it, alright? It went south very fast and I wanted to make sure it got back in track just as quick." She snaps. It's not all the truth, not completely. It unlocks the rest, though. "That's the only reason I'm still on this damn team."

Claire crosses her arms, Reade lets his posture drop.

"If you didn't want to stay, why did you?"

"I never said that."

"Explain to me what is it you said, then. Because I cannot go out on the field with someone who relies only in tactics to get shit done."

"Well, that's all I've got. I've got tactics and evaluation. That's it. You should go tell Weller to put me to a desk job right now."

He furrows his brow, takes a step back.

"Damn, you're just like her."

Claire shakes her head. No. Tasha is everything she isn't, and Tasha would've let Reade take the shot.

"I'm nothing like her."

"You both always want to do everything yourselves. And shut off when you can't."

"If I don't do everything, what good am I with you back?"

Reade sighs, lets his forehead smooth back into normal.

"I'm not going to take the team from you, Claire. You're part of it. Just like I am, just like Zapata."

He's inherently good and she can see why Tasha loves him so desperately.

* * *

 **So? What do you think of Claire and Reade finally meeting? Let me know! See you next time!**  
 **ps: chapter title from Wings, by Birdy.**


	10. truths I made while I was hiding

_a longass chapter bc developtment._

* * *

 ** _Synesthesia: a condition in which one_ **

**_or more sensory modalities become linked._  
**

* * *

It's not love. The kisses and long talks and little smirks do not equal love.

They like each other, there's no denying that part. Tasha simply does not think it is love.

She does not think it is essential to her existence, nor does she find every bit of Claire endearing.

There are moments where Claire thinks too much and is too stiff while she is rushed and adjustable. That's what being what the other isn't, means.

They like each other a lot. They like long talks and soft touches and Tasha smiles more often than not when she has the blonde around. It is not love, though.

Love is what she feels for Henry, what she feels for Reade. It is admiration and adoration and trust. She needs it to work, but it is not love. She's sure. Pretty sure. A hundred percent sure. A thousand percent.

"So I had an interesting conversation last night."

"Oh?" Tasha turns the steering wheel, taking them into the HQ's street. Their info run had been pointless if not for their time alone. Reade was at his weekly drug test and Kurt was in a good enough mood to assign Claire to go with her on the field.

"Matt stopped by to drop Sam after school and I kinda told him about us."

"Kinda?"

"I told him." The radio volume gets turned down. This is serious. She has never liked that. "And I hope that's okay."

"He's your best friend, of course it is."

"Good, cause he wants to meet you.."

She parks. She does not like this kind of serious conversations. Tasha does not love this woman. She just likes her a lot and she knew she'd get to know the other people in her life, eventually. The tightness in her chest was not expected.

"When?"

"It doesn't have to be now, but Val's birthday is coming up and she did tell me to bring you."

This is too much. Too many names and feelings and too much tightness.

It'd been three weeks since the talk in the bathroom and only one official stay-over. It is too intense for something that is not about the four-letter word.

"Okay." It slips past her lips, hangs in the air and on her throat. "Send me the date and time."

Tasha is a hundred percent sure she doesn't love someone she's only been with for a month, but the way Claire's eyes seem to shine does make her smile.

"How did it go?" She asks Reade later on.

"Fine. Yellow-y."

"Ew."

"How about you?"

"We didn't find anything." The hallway is empty and it makes her brave because she is at a loss at what is happening with her life. "I'm meeting Claire's baby daddy, though."

"That should be interesting."

"That should be terrifying."

"That too, but hey, if I can date Weller's sister and tell him, you can charm what's-his-face into liking you."

She sighs.

"I actually have no idea why we're friends."

"Are you kidding me? I give great advice."

She snorts and they get to Patterson's lab. It isn't love she feels. It isn't love that makes her heart beat faster and faster as Claire pulls her into a janitor's closet after Weller dismisses them early.

It is not love that allows her to make out with her girlfriend inside the FBI's building. It is definitely attraction. Enough of it for her hands to end up on the woman's butt. It is definitely professionalism and the want to keep things quiet that makes her pull away before it gets too far gone.

One day after the other, she is sure it is not love, the reason why she looks up from her table and her eyes automatically search for Claire, before anyone else.

It isn't love. She has never loved a significant other. This isn't different. Tasha is sure of it.

A hundred percent. A thousand percent.

"Babe? Tash?"

She snaps her head to the side, her mind coming back. She gives the cashier an apologetic grin.

"Sorry, I'll have a caesar salad and some italian-bread toast."

"Would you and your friend like extra dressing?" The boy behind the counter has a wound up posture. She tries not to dwell on it.

"No, that's all."

She extends a couple of bills towards him. He pulls it away quickly, passing the change while making a clear effort not to touch her.

"Next." The man calls, sparing Claire and her a pointed look before exchanging a glance with the cashier to his side and snickering.

Tasha has seen it time and time again, the 'socially acceptable' way people find to diminish who they find less worthy. A pointed Spanish word thrown in with a touch of patronizing, a disgusted expression over a same-sex couple shifting closer.

"Do you have a problem, pal?"

He gives her a smirk. The hand in hers pulls at her.

"Let it go." A whisper. A tug. The guy smirks.

The indignation consumes her chest in a matter of seconds.

"None at all, ma'am. If you and the lady could make your way out of the line, that would be grand."

"Let it go." Another whisper, another tug. Stronger this time, tighter. She walks but it'd be a fucking delight to break that kid's nose.

Claire is more distant than usual as they wait for their food, had let their grip on each other go as soon as they were far enough away. Tasha still feels anger humming inside of her and every now and again she snaps her gaze to the cashier, catching him staring more than once.

Her mind is half made up to march back there when their numbers are called. It is fierce and all-consuming, this need to defend, to take that little prejudicial attitude out of the punk's face. It is not about love as much as it is about protection.

"You know that being afraid is what lets shitbags like him act as they do, right?" She pushes the swinging door open, holds it long enough for Claire to step into the street too.

"Really? I thought our president had created a permissive environment, nice to know it is my fault, though."

They clutch their takeout bags and walk the few feet to the office.

"This mind set existed before Trump and it'll keep existing unless more people take a stand."

"What did you want me to do? Hang off of you? Kiss you in the middle of the diner? Nothing would have changed and someone else might have done something worse than throwing looks and making innuendos."

"I wanted you to show him he's powerless. I wanted _us_ to do that."

"There was a lesser chance to get spit up in our food by keeping our heads down."

"Because we cannot get another ten-dollar lunch anywhere else." Tasha is sarcastic. She's angry.

"If you think we handed the situation so poorly, you can go there and beat him up. I'm going to eat and try to forget this happened."

Oh. She's left alone in the lobby. She's left standing there, angry and confused and wanting to protect as Claire heads for the elevators.

Is it considered a fight? What they just went through? With the tough words and frowns and the walking away? This is all too new and intense for her, it just doesn't mean it is love.

It doesn't mean it is love, how her heart leaps when she is leaning against the side of her desk, tapping at her phone as she waits for Reade to give her a lift home at the end of the day and Claire comes closer.

"Why is it that I have to make that douche be okay with us?"

"You don't, but these little things go ignored every day when they shouldn't."

"We don't need to indulge it. He had no power and ignoring his go at us would have made him understand that."

Her posture drops. They hadn't talked for the rest of the afternoon. It'd build a constant weight on her shoulder. It's not usual for her anymore, to stay away from Claire.

"What guarantee do we have that it won't happen to other people? Turning a blind eye will never change anything."

"We _don't_ have any guarantees." Claire shoves her hands deep into her front pockets, looks somewhere behind Tasha. "We can only make a move when we have evidence and at that moment, there were none which justified a fight."

A cop's reasoning. It is not love, this thing she feels. How can it be? She does not analyze and Claire does not act.

The silence hangs thick and clear.

"I'm sorry for pulling away." A whisper. So different from the one at the diner, so so so different. "I- If it felt like punishment, I'm sorry. I wanted to protect us."

"Me too." She says. Other agents have left and it is just them in the bullpen.

It can't be love.

Can it?

"Protect and serve, right?"

"Damn right."

Tasha feels her insides turn liquid. They had kissed in the janitor's closet, but they cannot kiss between unfinished files and 24/7 cameras. So they share a look, share a breath, before she watches Claire leave her for the second time that day.

She is a hundred percent sure it is not love, she has never loved any other significant other and the liquid warmth in her chest is unidentified, but it is not love.

She's a hundred percent sure.

(sort of)

* * *

Sam hugs Valerie very tightly and his little cheeks blush from smiling.

"I love you, bud." The redhead says, holding the kid against her chest.

"Love you." He pulls away, wiggles his feet to be put down and proceeds to run away, Simba hot on his heels.

"I still can't believe you've adopted a dog."

"It feels like living with you. Because of his old age and all."

She glares, but opens her arms to embrace her sister as a greeting, anyway.

They finish setting up a few different snacks and plastic cups. There won't be many people coming. Just the three of them, Matt, Tasha, Nina and their grandparents.

"Where's your girlfriend, again?"

"She's coming by later. Sammy doesn't know about us yet."

"Does she know the address?"

"You literally live next door to me now, so yes, she knows the address."

Valerie pulls a face, taps a few things on her phone, changing the music on the speaker before:

"Are you telling Nana and Pops?"

"I'll probably have to, they'll wonder why she's here, otherwise." Claire puts the napkins next to the plastic cups, popping a Pig in a Blanket in her mouth. "Which reminds me: safe word."

Val groans, nodding despite it.

They'd made a pact when they first started to understand social events. If one of the two needed a way out of a conversation, they just needed to say 'lavander'.

Nina arrives first. Then Matthew and her grandparents, the man being a good friend and picking them up after work. He gives her a pointed glance, looking around the apartment. Claire drops her head and slips Simba the end tip of her sandwich bread.

She calls Tasha when 7:30 comes and goes and the woman doesn't show up.

"The thing with Reade took longer than I thought. I've just parked."

Sure enough, five minutes later the doorbell rings and she steps into the corridor before anyone can see the woman.

"Everything okay?" Tasha frowns, but Claire kisses her and the universe is softer and brighter and smells heavenly familiar.

"This is happening." She mumbles, hand framing the side of the brunette's neck.

"Yeah." Tasha breathes.

"Alrighty, then." She braces herself, turns away, twisting the door knob.

She stirs Simba away with her calf. The dog is old and small, but he barks like a champ and gets way too excited and suspicious over unknown people.

Valerie is pretending to pick something from the food table while clearly waiting for them.

"Happy birthday." Tasha says, posture starting to tense up by the multiple set of eyes on her.

Val's lips twitch into an amused smile.

"Good luck." The redhead mouths, spinning on her heels and sitting back down by Nana on the couch.

She finds Matthew looking at them and, fine, there's no postponing this anymore.

"Sam, can you come here for a moment?" He jumps down from her grandfather's lap, sprints to her. His hair is everywhere and she is quite sure Pops had something to do with that. "This is Tasha, my friend from work. Can you say hi?"

"Hi Tasha." He sticks out his palm like a proper grown up.

It doesn't sound exactly correct, the name which comes out of her boy's mouth. It sounds right (especially because of the glint glowing on her girlfriend's eyes), but he can't really say the sh.

"Hey, Sam. It's nice to meet you."

Tasha crunches down, takes the hand into her own and dear Lord, Claire is in complete awe of these two.

" Do ya help mama keep us sa'e?"

"I do, yes."

"Do ya ha'e a shield too?"

The brunette looks back at her and so does her son. She can see how surprised he is by not getting an answer right away.

"The badge." She explains and her girlfriend ohs before pulling the thing from her back pocket and giving it to the kid.

"It's pretty." He says, touching the indents on the metal for a minute before handing it back.

"Thank you."

"Do ya wanna play wit' Simba and me?"

"Maybe after I say hi to the others?"

Sam nods, ponders for a second before rushing away at the same speed he'd come.

Tasha stands up straight again, meets her eyes and they walk on.

Nina is kind and friendly, like she usually is, and her grandparents have tight-lipped smiles. They know about her sexuality, about the fluidity of it. They don't exactly understand it, but they'd raised her and Val to be tolerant of differences, resulting in her expecting nothing else from them.

It is a wonder, how well Matthew receives Tasha, though. He talks to the woman like she's been in their lives all along. Claire is thankful, loves him even more for it.

They sit at the counter stools, the conversation somehow making its way into her hometown and farm life.

"When I first saw this one I thought she was the most stuck up kid I'd ever meet." Matt smirks, his face morphing into a familiar one.

"Dear Lord-" She rolls her eyes, takes a swing out of the beer bottle she's sharing with the woman by her side. Claire knows where he's going with this and it ain't gonna be easy to get through.

"So did I." Tasha matches the smirk. Yep, she's definitely screwed.

"I think it's the smile. She was so goddamed nice and fluff."

"Exactly! But she's smart too, so it's not like you can slip in a mean comment."

"Thank you?" She frowns, making them snicker. She feels a palm against her knee, warm, firm, sweet. All her research said it wasn't the best idea to be affectionate to your new partner while introducing them to your kid. Tasha is wonderful, though. Wonderful and more comfortable by the minute. This scenario is one she wants to get used to, one she wants her family to get used to.

She lays her free hand on top her girlfriend's.

Sammy falls asleep before they cut the cake, tucked beside Nana on the couch, who also snorts softly.

Valerie has never been big on singing happy birthday, so they just eat the sweets and Matthew takes her grandparents home, Nina leaving as well, hugging Claire for a little longer than it'd be considered appropriate.

Just as she'd helped set everything up, she helps taking it down.

Tasha sticks around, carrying the garbage bag as she throws the plastic plates and cups in it. Simba follows them, trying to steal any leftovers he can.

"He's actually really cute."

"Have you ever owned a pet?"

"Nah, never really had the time to take care of one. Henry and I fostered a few though, back in the day."

"Really?" She leans against the wall, watches as Tasha ties the bag shut when they are done.

"There were a lot of stray cats where we lived." The brunette hands the bundle over, follows her as she heads for the main wastebin. "So they had lots of litters and most died if no one looked after them."

It's just a statement, as it comes out of the woman's mouth. Nothing major, nothing to be surprised by. And in a perfect world, it wouldn't be. In a perfect world every person would take care of those who needed it, be it human or not. It isn't a perfect world and they both know it.

Valerie looks tired, sighs while taking a place beside Sam with tired eyes.

"We should go." Claire states loud enough for her sister to hear it, but not so loud as to be disturbing.

A few overly practiced moves allow her to pick up her son and say goodbye to Val without waking the boy.

"Can you get the keys in my jacket?" She asks, hands settled in supporting her purse, Sam and his discarded shoes.

"Sure." Tasha mumbles. Claire turns slightly sideways, making the pocket more visible. "Do you want me to open it?"

"Please. The longest one is for the door." A twist, a click and the sight of her own apartment is comforting. "Let me just put him down real quick and I'll be back."

"I can go." Her girlfriend offers and no, no she doesn't want that. She wants to be so very close and wants to kiss Tasha another time. Wants everything to be heavenly familiar and soft.

Sam stirs a little when she changes him into his PJs, but he doesn't become fully conscious.

Claire closes his door halfway, takes one last look to make sure everything is set before turning to her living room.

"So… what did you think?" She walks to the woman, fingers reaching as soon as she's near enough.

"Matthew is nice." Tasha welcomes her close, lets her posture dorp. "Your son is just as awesome as I thought and your grandparents seemed cool."

"They are very cool, it just takes them a while to warm up to girlfriends."

"It's fine. They love you, that's more important."

She smiles and leans in. There's such a vulnerability here, when they are alone and all they see is each other. There's a low buzz that takes over every tiny part of her when Tasha kisses her without any rush.

There's a very loud buzz in her head a couple of days later, when they are in a hospital and there has been no word from the doctors working on their friend for the last hour.

Right then, however, it is low and heartwarming.

* * *

"Tasha, wait." Patterson tries to grasp her arm, she marches on.

"You gotta think this through, Zapata." Reade steps in her way, next. She glares.

"Move it."

"Don't do something you might regret later."

"Move your ass or I'll move it for you."

Her tone is very low. She is saving her voice for the man they are all trying to keep her from.

Reade sighs, gives her passage.

Tasha is well aware she's being followed into the interrogation room. It doesn't bother her. She'll play this one by the book. Sort of. She'll scream, if she has to, but she'll be careful with her words. The anger clings inside her like it is at home, like it has finally found its perfect nesting place. She'll let it. Until they find the ones missing, she'll let it.

"Are you tired, Frank?" Tasha pulls the metal chair, making the screeching noise loud and clear. The guy snaps into an alert position, his eyes swollen from lack of sleep.

"I'm fine."

"Fantastic. Then you are the man for the job." She slaps the files into the table. She feels all the edges in the room right against her skin. Cutting, pressing, prickling. "I need you to tell me how a deceased sixty-year-old transfered five thousand dollars a week into your account."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You don't, uhm? Alright, my bad." Tasha pulls another sheet of paper from the file, points to the highlighted section. "Why don't you explain how we found seven hundred K with your fingerprints on them tucked away at your house?"

The man does not move a limb. His eyes do not waver from her. There is no blush appearing on his neck, no point of sweat appearing at his armpits (besides the pre-existing stains). There is no clear indication to him cracking except for the slight glitch of the corner of his lips.

"Nothing? Alright, you should know there are no conjugals for FBI arrests."

"You can't arrest me."

"No, but we can arrest your wife."

"On what grounds?"

"We found her transporting ten pounds of cocaine over state borders on the back of her Jaguar. It's a pitty, though. She did look surprised when the cops opened the truck."

She stands, turns her back on the guy and one, two, three, four…

"Wait!" Frank calls. Tasha spins around, stares. He's a waste of oxygen, but he's been with the same person since before their first record of him. He cares about his wife. He had to, and she was right. "We both know those weren't hers."

"Do we? 'Cause all I have right now is DMV surveillance images against your words and you're not doing much to make me believe you."

"Let Mary go." He demands. She smirks.

"How much did they pay you? For how long have you been collecting info? It mustn't have been too long, Agent Pierce has just started working here." Tasha presses. He breaks.

"Dumb bitch." Frank mumbles.

She feels every sharp edge in the room pressing and cutting her skin.

"What was that?" Reade steps closer. She thinks he may be doing so to prevent her from launching at the prisoner. She won't, but it isn't the time to tell him.

"Weller drives home alone every Thursday. That bitch showed up out of nowhere. She was collateral."

Tasha wants to wrap her hand around Frank's throat and squeeze. She wants him to feel the air slipping out of him just as she is.

"Did you drop them off directly?" Reade is suddenly by the table, trying to take over the interrogation and no way in fucking hell.

"You assholes were moving fast. We had to take a detour."

"Your ass will be pinned to a wall pretty soon if you don't tell us where the two agents are right now." She leans in, squeezes every last nerve out of him, since she can't take his breath.

"Midtown."

"Write."

Reade gives Frank a notebook, slides a pencil with it.

As soon as the man is done, the paper is ripped away and they rush to the door. Her heart is beating so fucking fast she can't actually understand how it hasn't exploded yet.

"Agent Zapata?"

She shifts her eyes to the man still handcuffed to the desk. It almost surprises her, the detached look he suddenly shows.

"Have you ever lost someone you care about? Because you better hurry if you don't want to."

She hurries, alright. She runs, to be precise. She runs forever. Runs to the armory, Patterson by her side. running too, tablet drawing a map for their SUV.

Runs to put on her vest, to set her riffle.

(" _Hello?"_

 _"Tasha?"_

 _"Valerie?"_

 _"Do you know where Claire is?"_

 _"She was headed home, but that was a few hours ago."_

 _"She's not here."_

 _"Her phone?"_

 _"Straight to voicemail."_

 _"Sam?"_

 _"Here."_

 _She hears the desperation. She knows it starts washing over her, too.)_

"We need ambulances on standby." Tasha barks, doesn't have time to locate any tech staff in the sea of agents getting ready to leave.

"I've called for two already." Patterson is right there, right beside her and _oh, that's right, they have protocols for these things._ They have a thousand and one rules people before her have thought of already.

Okay. Okay.

She never stops running. Running to the driver's side, running around the damn car when Reade refuses to let her drive. Running her nails over the stitchings on her pants. She never stops running until she hears the loud and calming thud of a front door being broken down.

After that, her heartbeat finishes its marathon. It is just her breathing and the static in her earpiece. It is just her breathing and the agents calling back with clear rooms.

The first gunshot comes from her right. She is climbing stairs, keeps her sight trained ahead.

There's only emptiness and dust.

Oh, that's right. If the upstairs had really been abandoned, there would've been no footprints.

She follows the trail, finger alert to pull the trigger at any sign of hostility.

The imprints on the dust end at a closet. Reade pulls it open. A man jumps from inside, tries to shoot her, but her reflexes are faster. He's down and clutching his knee before the bang even stops ringing.

A breath. Another. And another. Two agents call the injured in. The other four report a clear floor.

A breath. Another. And another. She hears Nas on her ear.

"Just found a doorway. Looks like a basement."

Tasha rushes down, falls in line behind the last agent advancing into the dark stairway.

Shots. Lots of them. A woman behind a box. Tasha shoots her in the shoulder. The woman doesn't stop. Tasha shoots her in the head, next.

Shots keep being fired. A guy hidding in a corner. He charges at her, she elbows his nose and cracks his tibia with a firm kick. She keeps on walking.

Shots. Lots of them, less than when they started.

Two men running towards her. She is not running anymore. She shoots a femur and a collarbone, respectively.

No more shots. Silence.

A breath. Another.

"Clear!" One of the guys from upstairs.

"Clear!" One of the women from the main floor.

"Clear." Nas' voice. Thank God. "Two agents found. One unconscious, one seemingly stable."

It is still the NSA agent who speaks, so Tasha runs again. Runs, but it is still just her and her breathing and the injured reports.

She enters a smaller space already cramped with people. A clear path is drawn leading to the left corner, however. Tasha identifies blonde hair, the owner kneeling, a body lying on the ground.

It takes her a minute to move. It takes the paramedics the same time to appear.

She steps aside, eyes transfixed on two people she cares so much for with red all over them.

Claire stands upright when they rush Kurt away.

The man, the one which reminds her so much of Henry, has a neck brace stabilizing his spine and a blue pump breathing oxygen into his lungs.

Tasha wants to steal all of Frank's breaths and give them to Weller.

She can only hear the static in her ear and the bumping of her heart.

It takes her way too long to be brave and go to Claire, but she is falling for someone who is patient and someone who knows her and who is flawed everywhere she isn't.

Claire waits and Tasha steps lightly. A moment to look into blue, comforting eyes. So obscured, so tired. God, Claire is so tired and stained from blood all over.

She wraps a hand around the woman's waist, takes on some of the weight she's felt above her so many times.

There's instability on Claire's feet. It is the first time since Reade has let her help in which she feels centered enough to offer stillness.

* * *

Friction-burned wrists, scrapped knees, finger-shaped bruises on her upper arms. Superficial wounds.

That's all she's got. A few boo-boos she can hide under long sleeves and trousers. They won't take more than a week to heal. She's not lying open on a operation table, multiple doctors trying to fix the damage falling on barbed wires can do to the human body.

"Thank you." She takes the water bottle, lets her eyes fall on brown ones.

Reade sits by her side, twisting the cap off his juice. He takes a long sip, seems to process the taste before turning his attention back to her.

"Are those any better?" He points to her bandaged wrists. Her skin had been cleaned, showered with antiseptics and a good coat of ointment before it'd been wrapped in the sterile fabric.

"A little." Claire relents. It stings like a bitch, itches like hell, but she can't complain. She's not Kurt, so she cannot complain. "Have you heard from Tasha?"

It's stronger than her, the need to worry over the woman. Nothing had really settled until she'd felt Zapata's strength guiding her out of the house.

"She's probably still processing the guys. It takes a while." Reade has a tell, like most people do, for when he's lying. His face, his whole complexion, goes slack. Emotionless. A great feature for an interrogation, she's sure. Just not great when it comes to reassuring.

"It's been four hours." She mumbles, drinks from the bottle he'd brought her. The liquid does wonders for her dry tongue.

"I know." The man sighs, leans back against the standard-blue hospital chair. "Any news from the doc?"

"None."

"No news are good news, isn't that what people say?"

"People are full of crap."

"Can't say I disagree."

The silence that follows is not blessed. Nor is it bad. The silence is just that: silent, empty, nothing. Jane is still sitting across from them, Nas is still making a hole on the ground with her pacing and neither Tasha nor Patterson are there at all.

Kurt is still passed out and too close to being completely _gone_ for her liking.

"Shepherd is going to be more reckless now." Jane speaks, breaks the meaningless silence.

"She's suffered setbacks before." Claire points out.

"Not like this. Weller's been protected since day one. If she needed him, phase two must be coming closer and losing him must be a big deal."

"Here's to catching a terrorist at the expense of our boss." She makes an air toast with her water.

"We already paid that price." Reade snaps.

Mayfair. The name hangs in the air, unspoken.

They hear a creak, shift their heads to the door. Just a teen passing by, nose buried in his phone. Not the doctor, not news about their friend.

Silence. An hour. Ten more minutes. Her eyelids start weighing down.

 _("I'm not letting you grab a cab when you live four blocks away from me."_

 _"I'm not asking your permission."_

 _"Get your behind in the car."_

 _She smiles, rolls her eyes and gets in the car.)_

Claire sits up in attention when something clasps shut at the end of the hallway. A nurse passing over a metal chart to another nurse. Unconsciousness comes back to her a few seconds later.

 _("Don't you fucking dare fall asleep on me again." Her hands are firm against Weller's stomach, her jacket getting redder and redder._

 _"I've never heard you swear before." He chuckles._

 _"You'll hear it a lot more if you pass out another time."_

 _He does. His eyes waver and close three more times and she prays to everything she's ever known that he wakes up. She lets profanities slip past her lips just as his blood keeps slipping past her fingers.)_

The click-clack of shoes coming in their direction brings her back definitely. A doctor, finally. Surgical cap still tied around his forehead.

"Family of Kurt Weller?" The man asks in confirmation and Nas steps closer to him, eyes cool for anyone who doesn't know her.

"How is he?"

"Mr. Weller made it through the surgery, which is very good. However, he's not completely out of the woods yet. The next twelve hours are critical."

"Are there signs of infection?" She asks, standing. The wire was dirty and rusty. Their idiot kidnappers had not given them anything to clean the gashes with. He'd lost a lot of blood, but Claire couldn't stop thinking about the little organisms making their way into her friend's system over the endless time they spent locked in that basement.

"Not so far, no." The guy in scrubs informs. "We're giving him antibiotics to prevent that."

"When can he have visitors?" Nas' voice is controlled. For anyone who doesn't know her.

"In a few minutes. He's being taken to his room as we speak and should wake up soon."

Her lungs chug air in, her body is warm, her wounds clean. The burns on her wrists itch and the marks on her arms ache and the scraps on her knees shoot little waves of pain up her legs.

She walks away. Turns to the hospital's entrance and walks away.

Every little thing that should hurt in her does and it is not even close to what Weller will feel once he comes to. It's not even close to what her boss will feel because of her.

If she'd declined the lift, if she hadn't been on the car, Kurt would be fine. Probably with Shepherd, desperately trying to escape, but he would not have tried to protect Claire and he for sure would not have fallen into barbed fucking wires.

The outside world presents her with dry, cold winds. She lets her hair jostle about and the gushes stab through the sweatshirt Reade had provided from his trunk.

"Hey, stranger."

Tasha. Tasha's voice behind her.

Claire glimpses at where the sound comes from, takes note on how the woman leans against a wall, hands twisting a duffel bag.

"You done _processing_?"

"Patt is finishing up."

Tasha speaks. Tasha approaches her, settles beside her.

"Kurt's out of surgery."

"He's okay, then?"

An unexpected chuckle. Humourless, really. To everyone else who isn't her, there are no motives to laugh.

Claire can't help it, though. _Okay?_ How can someone, anyone, say something like _okay_ over this situation?

"That's stupid to ask." Tasha sighs, takes the words back and wouldn't it be great? If they could all say stuff and simply erase it when they realize it doesn't make sense?

"It is."

Silence. Empty. Nothing.

"I don't know what to do here."

She glances sideways again, the remaining smirk on her lips disappearing. It isn't funny. Nothing was ever funny about this.

She had been kidnapped and watched her friend almost die and her girlfriend, the one who was supposed to have her back, had stuck around long enough to make sure she wasn't actually dead.

"You should figure it out."

"I've been trying to."

"Good."

A sigh. She's not giving in. Not on this. Not on the hole Tasha's absence had left.

"I should have stayed, shouldn't I?"

"Probably."

A few seconds of hesitation. A shift, a body closer, heat blocking the wind.

"The last time I was in a hospital like this, Reade had ODed. I don't like hanging around them anymore."

"You were with me when Val- when the baby went away."

"No one was dying. No one I loved was hurt. Made it a little easier."

Their eyes lock together. Softness and endless brown to counteract the silent nothing.

Tasha is sorry. Tasha is broken and Claire knows a lot about her girlfriend, but not everything. Not all the patterns.

"Next time, you call, alright?"

It's not giving up. It is loving and smiling and finding shelter from the chilly air.

"Next time, I call."

There's no use saying there will be no next time. They know there will be. It's their job to get involved in sticky situations.

"I always thought I was prepared to die on the job, but I'm _not._ I- I wanna see Sam learn how to ride a bike. I want to be there when Val decides she wants to have a kid. I wanna take you to this venue I know, with live music and great, typical food. I thought I was ready to give my life for this country, but I'm not. I'm just _not."_

"No one is." Tasha whispers into her hair, their hands mushing together and Claire allowing her head to rest on the crook of the woman's neck. "We just like looking brave in front of the newbies."

A little pull at the corners of her lips. She doesn't smile. She won't smile until she has her son in her arms and Weller's out of the woods. There's a pull, nonetheless and the words are right there, at the tip of her tongue. Claire wants to let them out, wants to not overthink it because she's just too tired, but what if she thinks she feels it _because_ she's tired and after some solid shut-eye realizes she doesn't actually feel what she thought she did?

She stays quiet. Tasha fills the empty silence with soft breaths.

* * *

"Where did this one come from?"

There's a palm, firm and warm against her ribs, just under her breast.

It's comical, the way she's slowly moving into domesticity with Claire. The way they are simply lying in bed, her shirt bunched up because the woman likes to trace patterns against her skin while they fall asleep.

Tasha draws her hand down Claire's arm, sets it atop the rough, bandaged wrist. It's been three days. Three whole days since she'd found two people she cared for so much in a dark, damp hole.

Weller is alright. Anxious to get out of bed, slightly mad he didn't get to take part on taking Sandstorm down, but alright. No infections, which every doctor thinks is a stroke of luck. Shepherd is in custody.

Behind thick, steel bars and the terrorist is not going anywhere. Not ever.

Roman is dead, had sacrificed himself for Jane.

The tattooed woman was waiting on his body, the last they'd spoken to her.

"The scar?" She mumbles, her body complaining over the extreme ducks and rolls she'd done that night.

"Yeah."

"My mom got her boyfriend's gun once, when she was wasted." Tasha watches as Claire's body goes rigid. "I don't think she meant to pull the trigger, let alone shoot me. It was just a scrape, but… you know."

The screaming blackness of a corner turns and morphs into the barrel of the forty-five. She remembers all the moments which led to her first serious trip to the E.R.

Remembers how her mom laughed and laughed and wiggled the gun around and how she tried to talk the woman into dropping the weapon. She remembers the sound of the shot, remembers the pain and her mom's face changing in a blink, frown deep and confused.

Henry had called the ambulance and Tasha had cleaned her mother's prints from the pistol and placed her own fingers on the trigger. She was still underage. Her slate was still clean with the cops.

A thigh moving and consequently brushing against hers gets her back from memory lane.

"I'm sorry." Claire whispers, eyes sad and worried and understanding. The apology doesn't change the past, but it makes her insides melt.

"What about you?" She deflects, touching a thin stripe on the blonde's hairline. "How did this happen?"

Her _girlfriend_ swallows and casts a quick glance to her closed door.

(They had been very delicate and wary of her sleeping over at Claire's. Sam was with her and Tasha had only met the kid once and not so long ago. Still, it had been a tiring day and the woman's apartment was closer.)

"Some tours were harder than others for my mother." Claire starts, focusing on Tasha again. "And she developed PTSD. She was yelling in her sleep this one night and I went to wake her."

Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck.

How can they be so alike? How can their cracks and their fucking scars be so similar?

"She pushed me away. I fell back, hit my head against the nightstand's corner." Claire finishes, a shrug immediately following.

How fucking funny it is, that they are synesthetic? Complementary? Like birds singing while the sun sets in a Spring afternoon?

"I swear to God, if we start finishing off each other's sentences Imma bolt." She tries to be funny, just like their different similarity. It's too close to the truth, though.

A laugh. Quiet, discreet, shared.

"Just simultaneous speaking, then?" Claire offers.

"Fine, but just because I can't mindread."

The woman smirks, inches closer and closer and Tasha kisses her. She kisses the one lying next to her. The one she had not wanted to meet and the one who gives her extra croutons. The one who loves mornings and makes great coffee.

She kisses Claire because it is organic, to feel happy and safe and settled when you have just completed a year-long case.

"I'm really sure I love you, you know?"

It feels organic to let it out when they pull away to breathe, it feels organic to mumble it so close to Claire's face that her eyes can't focus properly. She wants to bolt, deep down, on how natural this all is.

It is organic for her to feel vulnerable and ready to hide on the couple of seconds it takes Claire to process the words and smile.

Oh, that smile. It can win awards and races and World peace.

(she kicks herself in the butt later when she recalls thinking those sorts of things, but right then all she can see is blurred blue and the pull of lips)

"Good, 'cause love really sucks if it's not reciprocated."

Her insides melt further until they are liquid and slipping off of her.

Months and months and months ago she had no partner, no idea who the fuck she was or if she'd be alive to see New Year's Eve.

How the hell did she end up like this?

Tasha kisses the woman she is head over heels in love with and exerts herself on not running away.

(she manages not to, even if only for a while).

* * *

 _I know, I know. this has already been very long but bear with me okay? I just wanted to thank whoever has read this story throughout and given me the fuel to face the self-doubt creating an original character brings upon an author. also, to my amazing betas haikha and rainbowswen for dusting off the rough edges of this work, Claire and Tasha wouldn't exist without you, so thank you thank you thank you. this verse is definetely not over, just taking a lil' break. you can come and say hello to me over on tumblr ( themillsdaughter) or on twitter ( wickedkins) if you'd like to.  
again, thanks for being awesome, cause, after all, that's what partners are for, right?_

 _ps: chapter title from Secrets, by Wild Wild Horses._


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